Sanctuary

by Caryn Lix

  “What?”

  I shook my head. “It’s not Rune interrupting our comms.”

  Matt leaned against the wall, his lips pursed. “She also didn’t manufacture the signal your friend investigated. Something else is going on.”

  I stared at the screen for a long moment. Next logical step: get the shutters up. But something inside me argued against it. Right now, my imagination filled in terrifying details about what lurked outside. What if the reality was worse?

  Setting my jaw, I plugged in the code to reset the system after an alert triggered the lockdown. The lights in the command center flickered briefly, and the motors in the window shutters roared to life. As an afterthought, I killed the primary lights in the command center—not that the aliens could see in, even if they floated right outside, but it made me feel better. Safer. More hidden.

  I wasn’t sure what I expected. The normal expanse of space, with Earth majestic below? A sea of space monsters converging on Sanctuary? Maybe even the lifeless bodies of the prisoners drifting forever in space?

  Inch by agonizing inch, the shutters slid up. My mood must have spread because Matt and Cage halted their conversation and came to stand by my side. Tension rolled off us, suffusing the air.

  Outside, stars speckled the sky, more brilliant than ever with the command center lights dimmed. As I’d predicted, we were angled the right way to see Earth stretched below us. But neither of those sights drew our eyes.

  It was the massive ship stationed between us and the planet that caught our attention.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  CAGE CHOKED ON HIS OWN breath, and matt surreptitiously made the sign of the cross. I closed my eyes in defeat. The ship was huge, easily three times the size of Sanctuary. “How did Rita miss this?” I said hollowly, and then answered my own question. “The same way they disabled our sensors and lured us off the station. They blocked her sensors. They damaged her shuttle. She was flying blind.” I wondered if the alien got into the shuttle bay by hitching a ride on Rita’s shuttle without her knowledge. It would explain how it entered a sealed room.

  Cage shivered. “If they see us as a . . .” He swallowed, hard, obviously forcing himself to go on. “As a food source, it was like a buffet table lined up and waiting to happen. They lured you off the station, blocked your comms, and got close enough to gain entrance without you noticing.”

  I shook my head. “But why? They’re too strong. They had to know we couldn’t stand against them. Why not just storm the station and kill us? Why the games?”

  “I’m not an alien shrink, Kenz. I’m guessing, same as you.”

  I shot him a glare, but he was frustrated, not condescending. And so was I. Who knew how many of them lurked in the ship outside? Their technology—their thinking—existed completely beyond my comprehension.

  Take the ship. While our ships tended to be sleek metal bearing fresh coats of paint, this looked like it was made of black blocky plastic. It resembled nothing so much as something my little cousins built out of LEGOs, aerodynamics be damned. I couldn’t conceive of a ship like that breaking planetary atmosphere.

  “We’re screwed,” said Matt, eloquently summing up the situation.

  I didn’t want to agree with him. But we had no shuttles. No way off this ship. No way to contact Earth. No way to kill the aliens.

  No way to do anything but die slowly at their claws.

  Matt sank into a chair and dropped his head into his hands. Cage paced to the other side of the command center and hunched over a console, his arms held so tight his shoulder blades knifed under his shirt. And I stared dumbly through the window.

  Where the hell had these things come from? What did they want?

  Or, more terrifying: Did they want anything at all ? Maybe they came to kill us, and didn’t care about anything else—just planned to destroy us and take the planet. Maybe the probes all those years ago were nothing more than a way to scan our world for life, and if they found any, to bring the aliens.

  How could we stop them?

  And if we didn’t stop them, what would they do next? Once they worked their way through Sanctuary, would they turn their sights to Earth? With no way for us to communicate with the planet, Dad might be its only hope. When he couldn’t reach Sanctuary, couldn’t reach me, hopefully he’d return with reinforcements, warn Earth, and save his own life.

  Or get himself killed as the aliens started their destruction of the planet.

  I gritted my teeth and stared at a corner of the room. No. I couldn’t let that happen. Even if I couldn’t save Sanctuary, there had to be a way to save Earth. But what could I do? We had no comms. No shuttle. No hope.

  As if he’d read my mind, Matt asked softly, “Doesn’t this station have an escape pod or anything?”

  “Sure,” I said. “It’ll hold one person, and you can’t launch unless you’ve triggered the self-destruct system.” The boys stared at me blankly, and I laughed. “Omnistellar doesn’t encourage leaving your post. If you’re launching the escape pod, it’s because things are so spectacularly messed up that only one guard survived, and they’re coming home to report to central command.” Funny how that had seemed perfectly reasonable before.

  It was an option, I supposed. Maybe the only one left. We could record a message explaining the situation and put someone—probably Anya—in the pod, activate the self-destruct, and launch.

  And then what? The aliens almost certainly had weapons on that monstrosity of a ship. It was better than no chance at all, but it probably meant sentencing Anya to a terrifying death on her own, and Earth would be no safer at all. And of course, there was the fact that everyone on Sanctuary would die in a fiery explosion.

  And then, all at once, it came to me. We might have a way to stop the aliens from targeting Earth.

  But it was an awful, terrible idea. One I probably wouldn’t survive.

  My voice caught in my throat. Once I spoke, I’d be committed to this ridiculous plan. My brain knew what to do, but my body shut down, going into full denial.

  Matt arched an eyebrow in my direction. “Kenzie?” he asked.

  I realized I was leaning forward in my chair, gaze fixed on the ship outside, jaw locked so tightly it sent waves of pain radiating down my neck. “Okay,” I managed. “Okay. So there’s no way off this station, no way that doesn’t involve killing everyone we leave behind. But there might be a way to save Earth.”

  “What?” Both boys shot to their feet, staring at me like I’d lost my mind.

  “How?” Cage asked.

  “The same way I planned to reach my mother after you guys trapped me by the prison.” I nodded at the alien ship. “I go outside.”

  Stunned silence greeted my announcement. “Go where?” Cage demanded after several seconds.

  “The alien ship. Where else?” They both started talking at once, and I held up my hands to deflect them. “Look, I’m not thrilled about it either. But it’s that or sit around and wait for death. If we stay here, we die anyway, and Earth might die with us. If I go over to the alien ship, I can . . . I don’t know. Find a way to sabotage it, maybe.”

  “And almost certainly get yourself killed,” Cage snapped.

  I winced. That was a possibility I’d been willfully ignoring. “There is that,” I allowed, forcing myself to confront the idea. But in every manga I’d ever read, every fantasy I’d ever imagined, the odds had been worse than zero that the hero would survive, and yet somehow they always did. Maybe I’d manage to channel some of their luck. “I’m not quite as happy with how I’ve lived my life up to this point as I used to be,” I said at last. “I’m not looking to die, but if I can save everyone on Earth, well . . . I’m willing to take the chance.”

  Matt shook his head. “This is the worst idea in a series of bad ideas. Starting with this entire escape plan,” he added, glaring at Cage.

  “Hey, my escape plan didn’t invite aliens onto the station.”

  “That doesn’t make it smart.”


  I got to my feet, but they didn’t even seem to notice, continuing to argue over my head. I stomped my foot and stepped forward, backing them down as I fixed my attention on Cage. “I agree with Matt. Your plan was stupid. What’s wrong with mine?”

  His eyebrows shot up to his hairline. “Where should I start? For one thing, you don’t even know if you can get on that ship. They tore a hole in our hull to gain access, remember? We don’t know how they board. We don’t even know if they need oxygen, which means they might not have airlocks. And if you do get on board, what then? There might be hundreds of the things. So you’ll, what, tiptoe around and hope they don’t notice you?”

  “I didn’t say it was a perfect plan, but it’s the only one I’ve got. If you have a better idea, I’d love to hear it.”

  Cage’s face twisted in what I was coming to recognize as resignation—albeit that special brand of Cage resignation, reserved for the most difficult decisions. I made things easy for him. “I don’t need your permission. I’m going to the alien ship, and you can’t stop me.”

  I really hoped he didn’t call me on that. Cage was stronger than me, and he was sure as hell faster. He could absolutely stop me if he wanted to. I was just banking that he wouldn’t.

  “All right,” he said at last. “But I’m going with you.”

  I rolled my eyes and his expression turned dangerous. “Sorry,” I said. “But have you ever been in zero g before?”

  “Actually, I have. Some of the operations we ran in Taipei were zero g. It’s a common security feature with the bigger corps.” He leveled me with a challenging stare. “Any other assumptions you want to make?”

  Arguments taunted the tip of my tongue, but I bit them off. I read the resolve in his eyes; Cage wasn’t letting me go on my own any more than I would have let him. We had enough XE suits—Cage would fit in Dad’s easily enough. His speed would definitely come in handy, and I wasn’t ashamed to admit I wanted the backup. I relented. “Okay. We’ll go together. Just make sure Rune knows it wasn’t my idea.”

  Matt nodded. “I’m no use to you, so I’ll stay here. What can I do to help from the command center?”

  “Stay in touch with Rune,” Cage directed. “And hopefully with us. Let us know if anything changes. And don’t get dead.”

  It was pretty simple as directives went. Matt almost smiled. “Can you show me how this stuff works?”

  I ran a quick program, unlocking all of Sanctuary’s systems in blatant defiance of security protocols. At this point, I almost gloried in the feeling of disobedience. “Everything’s pretty straightforward and user friendly,” I said, pulling up the most important things—primarily security and communications. “My personal comm unit should keep working unless something blocks the signal, and the XE suits each have their own. You can keep in constant contact with us. If we don’t come back . . .” I hesitated. “Remember the escape pod?” I walked him through the steps to activate the self-destruct and launch the pod. It was a mark of how much I’d come to trust the prisoners that I gave him these directions. After all, Matt could just escape himself if he was willing to sacrifice the others. But somehow I knew he wouldn’t.

  Particularly with Rune back in the prison.

  Sure enough, Matt scowled and shook his head. “I won’t be doing that.”

  “If we don’t come back, it’ll be your only chance to save Earth. Stick Anya in there. Give her a chance. Send a message with her.”

  He hesitated a moment longer, then nodded, clearly unhappy. “And . . .” I hesitated before unholstering the stun gun at my side. “You’d better take this.”

  He raised an eyebrow, making no move to accept it. “I think you’ll need it more than I will.”

  Somewhat guiltily, I started to return it to my side. He was right, but leaving him here defenseless felt wrong.

  “With the kind of numbers we’ll probably face on that ship, a single stun gun won’t make a difference,” Cage replied. “We’re relying on speed and stealth, not weapons, and we can’t leave you defenseless. Take the gun.”

  “Station defenses,” I said suddenly. I leaned past Matt and pulled up the commands for the turrets in the hallway. A few minutes of fiddling with the code gave me control.

  “Didn’t Rune say those things would just spray bullets around?”

  “Yes, but if there’s anyone in that hallway other than you guys, I don’t think sprayed bullets are going to be your problem. Use the turrets. Shoot anything that moves.”

  “Yeah? What if it’s your mother?”

  I winced at the thought but managed to keep my voice steady. “Then you’ll sense her before you pull the trigger, right?”

  Matt’s hands shook pretty badly as he adjusted the gun controls, and the fear in his face seemed almost as bad as when he’d seen the creatures. I glanced at Cage. Was Matt going to be okay? The ashen pallor of his face made me question leaving him here at all, let alone giving him control of something as deadly as a station turret.

  Cage slapped Matt on the shoulder hard enough to make me flinch. “You’ll be fine,” he said. “Just don’t kill anything you recognize.”

  Somehow, the display of bravado seemed to steady Matt. He rolled his eyes, then pulled the code screen off the console and set it to the side, within easy reach. To my surprise, he stepped forward and hugged me, a quick, awkward embrace I barely had time to return. “Watch yourself,” he muttered.

  “You too,” I said.

  Cage nodded at me. “All right. So we get to these XE suits, wherever they are, without meeting the creatures, make our way to their ship, find a way on board, and then . . . ?”

  “I haven’t figured that part out yet.” To be honest, I wasn’t even sure we’d get that far. My only hope, the one line of reasoning I clutched like a lifeline, was that since the aliens didn’t seem to walk through walls, there had to be a physical way on and off their ship. All we had to do was find it.

  I led Cage out of the command center with a glance at Matt, who was hunched over the console, one finger twitching toward the turret controls. “Is he okay?”

  “Yeah. He’s uncomfortable around guns of any kind. When he was younger, someone shot up his school trying to weed out anomalies.” Cage kept his expression carefully blank, his gaze on the far wall.

  I blinked. “I didn’t hear about that.”

  “You wouldn’t,” he replied dryly. “They keep anything involving anomalies quiet. You probably heard about the shooting, though, just not the cause. Nebraska. About six years ago.”

  I racked my memory. I did remember hearing about a school shooting, but not specific details. School shootings were rare enough to make big news, but I’d been pretty young at the time. “Will he be okay?” I repeated. Cage’s new information did nothing to lessen my concerns.

  “He’s fine. I’ve known him quite a few years now, and he’ll pull it together. He always does. Now, where are we headed?”

  Good question. Most of the XE suits hung in the shuttle bay, but if the creature was trapped there? “Let’s go through the initial airlock,” I said at last. “We keep two suits there for sure.” Not my suit, the one fitted to me, the one I’d practiced in. But really, an XE suit was an XE suit: a slightly bulky, uncomfortable monstrosity that kept you alive in a vacuum.

  This was actually happening. We were going outside, crossing a nightmare of deep space in hopes of breaching an alien ship. Cage tossed me a grin, and my own lips quirked in response. We might be foolish. We might even be going to our deaths.

  But at least we were doing it together.

  TWENTY-SIX

  WE REACHED THE PRIMARY AIRLOCK without incident, aside from the fact I almost chewed through the insides of my cheeks. My stomach hurt, my shoulders ached, even my jaw throbbed. Every rustle in the ceiling, every shudder through the station, sent us diving to the ground, where we crouched for several tension-filled seconds before resuming our trek. A few times I almost cracked and asked Cage to pick me up and whip us to our destin
ation. But that might draw the aliens’ attention, and besides, my pride wouldn’t allow it. It was one thing if he grabbed me and whisked me off in an emergency; asking him to carry me around for convenience was another matter.

  Cage stayed uncharacteristically quiet, probably as engaged in watching for movement as me. Or maybe he hated my plan too much to speak. I wouldn’t blame him. I kind of hated my plan too, but what choice did I have? I still didn’t know what had happened to Mom, and I’d lost Rita already. I wasn’t going to lose Dad—not to mention my entire planet—too.

  Upon reaching the airlock, we slowed as if by mutual design. I signaled Cage to wait on the other side of the door. He complied, and I tucked myself against the wall. If the creatures were in there, they’d hear the door, no question. I could only keep perfectly still and hope they charged by, giving us a precious few seconds to slip inside and close the door behind us. My fingers clenched convulsively around the stun gun. I didn’t know if it would do much good against more than one alien, but at least it was something.

  I scanned my thumb to open the inner airlock.

  The door slid open with agonizing slowness. I held my breath, not moving a muscle, poised to respond if something crept, or burst, or lumbered through the opening. Across from me, Cage met my gaze with a steadiness belied by the tic at his throat, his fists clenched as he too poised for action—although without a weapon, he was even less prepared than I was.

  Nothing happened.

  I raised my eyebrow in question, and he nodded. I pointed to myself, to him, to the door—a let me go first gesture. Again Cage nodded.

  Still, it took a moment to make my feet move. Conscious of Cage’s eyes on me as much as anything else, I forced myself into the airlock.

  It was empty—as empty as when I’d arrived on Sanctuary three months ago. On my left were two lockers that I knew held XE suits and some emergency supplies. A computer console, a first aid kit, and a collapsible ladder occupied the area to my right.