by Caryn Lix
It took way too long to help everyone into their XE suits—including Cage, who could barely move. I remembered playing with fashion dolls with my cousins on one of our rare family visits. My life was training camps and junior guard clubs, and there I was, awkwardly forcing a doll’s arm into a sweater while my cousin yelled at me not to bend it that way. Of course, I hadn’t really cared if I broke the doll. I preferred not to snap Cage’s arm.
We managed it at last, though. I hesitated for a moment, then offered my pistol to Mia. She snatched it from my hand and thumbed the safety in a way that gave me confidence. If I never fired that thing again, it would be too soon. Let Mia carry the burden. “Careful,” I said. “I shot one of them and it didn’t seem to have much effect.”
“You target the head?”
“No,” I muttered, not bothering to mention that what I targeted and what I hit weren’t necessarily one and the same.
“You’ve never seen a zombie movie? Always target the head.” She offered me a half smile. “Careful. And hurry.”
Then, before I could reply, she disappeared.
I shook my head and turned to Tyler. “The room next door is the ship’s primary storage,” I told him. “Gather up anything that might be useful. The only things we know for sure the aliens have are water and oxygen. Food, light, clothing—anything you can find, stack it up and we’ll drag it along in the last load.” I glanced around. “Maybe put it in the shuttle, just in case the aliens show up. Might as well use it for something.” If it couldn’t get us off the ship, it could at least be a protective locker until we returned.
Tyler nodded, looking faintly alarmed at being entrusted with anything at all, but I knew Mia was listening nearby. For a moment I contemplated giving her the order directly, and I almost laughed out loud at the thought. She’d take the hint anyway.
It took a while to reach the alien ship with four kids in tow. Interestingly, Alexei seemed to have quite a bit of experience with zero g, so having him aiding Anya at the rear helped. But Reed was useless, Cage more so, and Rune was worse. Alexei and I half pushed, half dragged them along, and we used a lot more thruster fuel than I wanted getting to the ship. In a way I was grateful for the occupation. It kept me from picturing Mom’s empty stare, Matt’s blood-soaked chest. My own breathing echoed loudly in the suit’s chambers—an attack of claustrophobia threatened to overwhelm me. I fought it down. The others were depending on me.
Once inside, I double-checked the corridors. The aliens remained in their slumber, and I didn’t hear anything disturbing. Breathing a sigh of relief, I returned to the prisoners.
Each of these suits had an emergency tool kit, meaning plenty of screwdrivers and flashlights. Alexei still had one of the stun guns, and he passed it to Cage. Meanwhile, I showed Rune how the doors worked, cautioning her against using them. “Stay here,” I instructed, indicating the corridor with the depressed areas. “Get inside the holes, if you can. You can use the lights, but keep quiet. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
“We’ll be back as soon as we can,” Alexei corrected.
I glared at him. “I need you here.”
“No, you need me with you. You’ll never keep them organized by yourself.”
I hated to admit it, but he had a point. And I didn’t have time to argue. “Fine. Let’s go.”
Dragging the empty suits through space was almost harder than guiding them with bodies—at least the prisoners directed their thrusters when you told them to. I didn’t want to admit it, but Alexei’s help proved invaluable. Still, by the time we reached Sanctuary, I’d burned through so much thruster fuel I had to switch to one of the other suits. I checked them all and frowned. At this rate, we’d have enough to guide everyone over, but just barely. “Try to conserve,” I murmured to Alexei, and he nodded.
Mia had not been idle in our absence. In addition to guarding the shuttle bay door, she’d set the kids to foraging the area for anything useful and had accumulated a small pile of emergency med kits, tools, flashlights, and rations, which she’d stacked in the middle of the room. I nodded my appreciation, but she didn’t look up from sorting the pile. A moment later, she disappeared.
Once we’d gathered the second group, we discovered that only Mia and Tyler would be left behind, much to Tyler’s dismay. “Come on, Kenzie,” he complained, following me around as I checked XE suits for seals. “Don’t leave me on this station. . . .” His voice dropped to a whisper. “Especially with her.”
“Look, Mia will keep you safe. Just do as she says. We won’t be long.”
He groaned audibly and glared at the doorway where Mia, presumably, lurked. “You have no idea how creepy it is hanging out with an invisible person!”
I grinned. “Well, there’s your challenge: sharpen your mental skills by finding her.”
“Right, invade Mia’s mind. That’ll go well.”
“You invaded mine with no problems.”
Tyler blanched, and I sighed. At the time the invasion had felt vicious, unprovoked, and unnecessary . . . but I’d come to see it was desperation, not malice, that motivated their actions. If my own parents refused me answers, well . . . I couldn’t guarantee I wouldn’t ask Tyler to find them.
Besides, who was I to talk? At least Tyler hadn’t killed anyone. Suddenly I regarded him with suspicion. How much did he see? Did he know what I was thinking right now? If Tyler realized I’d killed Matt, he might . . .
Oh, for God’s sake. What was I going to do about it? Kill him too? Semi-hysterical laughter bubbled inside me, and I turned away before it could escape. For a moment that sickening sense of vertigo threatened again, and I took a moment to fight it off. God, I needed rest. I needed to stop, to think.
Behind me Tyler let out a shuddering breath that sounded like a sob. “Kenzie, I am so sorry.”
Great. He thought my reaction was at the memory of his mind invasion. Well, that ought to keep him out of my thoughts. “Forget I said anything.”
“No. You’re right. It was a lousy thing to do.”
“Then I guess you’re lucky I’m such a forgiving person.” I didn’t quite keep the sarcasm out of my voice. Slapping Tyler on the shoulder, I sealed my own helmet. I felt like I was watching myself from the outside, but the other Kenzie, the one who didn’t seem bothered that she’d just killed one of her friends, that her mother had just died, put on a pretty good show. “Suck it up,” I said, my voice tinny and mechanical through the speaker. “We won’t be long.”
And take your own advice, Kenzie.
The second group reached the ship a little faster, but much to my annoyance, there was no sign of the first group in the corridor where we’d left them. “Great,” I muttered to Alexei as we stood with our helmets off, the kids behind us clumsily removing their suits. “Did they wander off or were they taken? Do we waste time hunting for them or return to the station? If something did happen, this group is sitting ducks, but the longer it takes to escape Sanctuary . . .”
Alexei swore in Russian. I was pleased to note I understood most of it, and went so far as to hesitantly reply in the same language, “This has Cage written all over it.”
He blinked at me in surprise. “You speak . . . no, of course you don’t. Rune told me. Your power.”
He added something in Russian, and I shook my head. “Too fast.” I’d gotten the gist of it, but . . .
He grinned and switched to English. “You’re not wrong. Even injured, Cage isn’t the type to wait around, and the others will follow him anywhere.”
I threw my hands up in disgust. “What do we tell everyone?”
Sure enough, Kristin popped up between us. “Where’s Cage?” she demanded.
Alexei and I exchanged speaking glances. “We sent him on ahead,” I lied, a sick feeling in my stomach. I’d tried so hard to set my fear and grief aside, but they kept clawing their way back up. Finding the others missing triggered the emotions all over again. Were they really just following Cage? Or were they lying in a pool o
f blood?
I went through the same spiel I’d gone through with the others, emphasizing they should stay where we left them, and prayed I wasn’t abandoning them to be discovered by a prowling group of creatures. I really wanted to go after Cage, but common sense won out. He’d probably gotten worried about Imani and dragged the others off to check on her. But to be safe, I poked my head into the next chamber to ascertain that all the aliens were still asleep. They were, which meant that the group here was probably safe; and Mia and Tyler awaited us back on Sanctuary, where it was definitely not safe. So with that in mind, Alexei and I returned to the station to make one last trip.
Only to find that Mia and Tyler had disappeared too.
THIRTY-FOUR
THIS TIME, ALEXEI’S RUSSIAN SWEARING came too fast to follow. “What now?” I groaned, running to the door. I glanced up and down the hall, even whispered, “Mia!” in case she was nearby but invisible.
Nothing.
I found the supplies neatly stacked inside the shuttle. Tyler and Mia had used the shuttle’s XE tethers to bind everything together in a way that would be easy to transport. “Okay,” I said. “They can’t have gone far.” I glanced at Alexei and, having caught a moment of sheer terror on his face, grabbed his arms and forced him to meet my gaze. “Alexei. They can’t have gone far. Mia would have shot anything trying to get in here, and she wouldn’t just wander off. Something must have gotten too close for comfort, and she moved to a safer place.” They were okay because they had to be okay. I refused to let anyone else die on my watch.
Alexei nodded, but although I’d staved off his hysteria, I knew it wouldn’t take much to tip him over the edge. I pictured Alexei having a full-fledged panic attack and nearly had one of my own, so I dumped the XE suits beside the supplies in the shuttle and put him to work helping me push everything to the back, out of range of any curious invaders. “Let’s try the storage room,” I said once we’d finished, trying to cover up the hopeless tinge to my voice. What looked like all of Sanctuary’s emergency supplies were currently sitting in the shuttle. I didn’t know why Mia would be back in storage, but we had to start somewhere.
Halfway to the door, something caught my attention. “Wait,” I said. It was a torn strip of red cloth I recognized as the shuttle’s emergency landing parachute. The creature had done a number on that shuttle, but had it tossed pieces all the way over here? The cloth’s arrangement on the ground seemed purposeful, almost like . . .
“Is it a signal?” Alexei asked.
“Let’s find out.” I followed the cloth behind a stack of emergency supplies and discovered a loose access vent. I frowned. “The shuttle bay’s a sealed room, like the airlock. This vent can’t actually go anywhere.”
“It must go somewhere,” Alexei replied shortly. “It’s not a hatch to nowhere, Kenzie.”
Obviously it wasn’t a hatch to nowhere. I’d been thinking out loud. I bit off an irritated reply and examined Alexei’s broad shoulders. “I think you’re going to have to let me check this one out on my own.”
He scowled but stepped aside. It was going to be a tight squeeze for me to get through that vent—Alexei didn’t have a hope.
I returned to our stash of tools for an emergency belt, thus gaining a few screwdrivers and a flashlight. If only I hadn’t left the stun gun with Cage’s group. At this point, I needed it a lot more than they did. I shook that thought aside and clasped the penlight between my teeth, then squirmed headfirst into the vent. “What do you see?” Alexei demanded at once.
I made an inarticulate sound around the flashlight. The metal vent scraped my elbows as I dragged myself forward. It was a tight fit, doable for an average-size human. But why did it exist in the first place?
I got my answer about thirty feet in. The vent widened to a maintenance corridor providing access to the circuitry in the shuttle bay. A ladder stretched up, and there was a hatch above my head. I climbed the ladder and tucked the flashlight into my armpit. “There’s a hatch,” I called to Alexei. “I’ll be right back.”
He said something in return, but his voice faded into echoes and murmurs.
The maintenance hatch didn’t require any codes, just the leverage to twist it open. I’d never seen anything like it on the station. Incredible how much I was learning about Sanctuary—a station I’d thought I knew inside and out.
Just like I’d thought I knew my mother, my father. Omnistellar. Myself, for that matter. My hands shook at the memory of the gun’s recoil, and I tightened them on the wheel, giving it a particularly vicious twist.
The hatch gave way with a hiss, revealing it to be sealed in case of depressurization, which made sense, given it connected to the shuttle bay. I climbed the ladder to find myself in a short tunnel extending up, another hatch over my head. This one had a red seal around it. I reached down and pulled the first hatch shut. When its seal turned red, the one above my head changed to green.
This had better not go on much longer. I put my weight on the first hatch and used both hands to twist the one above my head.
It popped open with a hiss, and something closed around my wrist. I swallowed my scream, jerking involuntarily, only to be met with a familiar string of curses.
I stopped fighting. “Mia?” I called.
She shimmered into existence above me, her face a taut mask of fear or anger or both. “Oh, you’re back,” she said irritably. “That’s nice.”
“What the hell happened?” I hauled myself up to find a small maintenance tunnel. Tyler trembled against a wall, his face pale. “Are you okay?” I asked.
He managed a nod and, to his credit, a slight smile. “Thanks to Mia,” he said. “She was kind of brilliant.”
Mia snorted. “I shoved your ass into a vent. But if you want to call it brilliant, that’s fine by me.” She glanced over my shoulder. “Are they dead?”
“Are what dead?”
She stared at me like I’d lost my mind. “Did you think we hid in this shaft for our entertainment? The creatures.”
At least five seconds of dead silence followed in which my lips moved but no sound came out. “How many?” I managed at last. “What happened?”
“It was a few minutes after you left. Something didn’t feel right. I couldn’t put my finger on what. And Tyler here was even jumpier than usual—kept saying he sensed something.”
Tyler shot to his feet, smashed his head against the ceiling, and sank back to his knees. “I did sense something,” he muttered, rubbing his head. “I can’t read their minds—they’re too . . . well, alien. But I’m starting to get a sense for them. Not a good sense. Just enough.”
“So you sensed creatures,” I prompted. “And?”
“And,” Mia snapped, “they came out of the metalwork. I mean that literally. One second everything was calm, and the next we were surrounded by the things. I’m guessing they have some sort of camouflage. That, or they’re learning.”
“Learning?”
Mia shrugged. “I’ve turned invisible in front of them a few times. I know they can’t see, but they might have other senses we don’t know about.”
Oh God, I really did not want to consider that possibility. “How did they get in?” I demanded, my voice verging on hysterical. “How long were they there?”
“How the hell should I know? You think I stuck around to ask? Four of them surrounded us. No way to shoot them all, so I grabbed this infant before he could scream”—she indicated Tyler with a jerk of her thumb, ignoring his scowl—“and looked for another way out. We found the vent, and I grabbed the cloth and hoped you’d be bright enough to spot it. So I’ll ask you again: Are they dead?”
“No,” I said. “No, they’re not dead. We didn’t see them at all.”
“We?” Mia stared at me a moment, and her face took on a deadly set. “Where’s Alexei?”
“He’s . . .” Oh God. My throat tightened. “He’s in the shuttle bay.”
With the creatures.
THIRTY-FIVE
I SCRAMBLED DOWN THE LADDER, all too aware of Mia at my back, pistol clutched in her hand. Anger radiated off her like a physical force. For once, I didn’t blame her. I cursed myself for leaving Alexei behind. I knew he wouldn’t have fit in the vent, but I should have . . . what? Made him hide in the shuttle? Something. I’d lost Mom and Rita today. Matt was dead because of my own stupidity and carelessness. Had I left Alexei to die too?
But then, the creatures didn’t really want to kill him. They wanted to assimilate him. I clung to that hope, but I didn’t say it out loud. It wouldn’t comfort Mia and might earn me a shot in the back—especially since I didn’t know if there was any way to return from assimilation without Imani’s very specific set of powers.
As soon as we opened the second hatch, Tyler sucked in a breath. “They’re still there,” he confirmed in a whisper. I glanced over my shoulder to find his face twisted in what might be pain, fear, or concentration. Probably a combination of the three. “Their . . . signatures. They’re getting stronger.”
I nodded and took the ladder at an agonizing but silent crawl. Mia’s breath came in short, livid gasps. I knew this pace must be killing her. Part of me was even on her side, wanted to get to Alexei as fast as possible. But for once I was going to think before I acted. Yet again I fought back a sickening wash of grief and anger—at myself, at the creatures, at Omnistellar, even at Mom, as if she’d somehow died to spite me. I knew that wasn’t true, but the crumbling cage around my grief didn’t seem to respond to logic.
Focus, I reminded myself. Quiet. Strong. Keep moving.
Of course, crawling through a metal vent on my elbows and trying to do it soundlessly felt nearly impossible. By the time I reached the exit, I’d made enough noise to wake the dead. Somehow Mia managed to stay quiet—except for the occasional whispered command to shut up—but Tyler was even louder than me.