Pitch Dark

by Courtney Alameda

  The pressure pounds through my veins. I don’t remember the layout of the bridge. We might have to cut straight through the bridge’s windows, which might be dangerous if the bridge is still pressurized. Think, you idiot! I tell myself. There’s gotta be a way—

  The ship’s underlights flare again. Something shifts out of my peripheral vision. My adrenaline spikes. I wheel the mecha around, heartbeat drumming in my fingertips and banging through my temples. My mecha’s headlights ripple over a translucent skin, its occupant long gone and its mouth open in an eternal shriek.

  There’s other detritus here, too—Look, Mom, an SAT word!—bits of the ship suspended in space, as if a large section of its hull had been blasted out with explosives.

  I drive the mecha closer. The light from my high beams slides over the gunmetal-gray plates, then snags on a tangle of metal. The Muir’s been ripped open as if made of nothing more than aluminum foil.

  Something’s bored a hole straight through the bottom of the ship.

  “Ah, crap,” I say, shifting the angle of my high beams. Not only has something created a massive hole in the ship’s hull, but it looks like there’s something hiding in it, too.

  Probably shouldn’t have cracked that joke about Cthulhu.

  “What?” Alex asks. “Did you find a way inside?”

  “Sit tight, kids,” I say, looking at the pulsating membrane overhead. I fire up the mecha’s big, sparking ion saw. It casts a bright glow around the mecha’s right fist.

  “What are you doing, Tuck?” Sebastian hisses.

  “If I don’t come back, guys,” I say with a grin, angling my ion saw, ready to rip the membrane open from edge to end, “make sure to avenge my death.”

  USS JOHN MUIR NPS-3500

  CONTROL ROOM

  LAURA

  “You’re the Noh Mask hacker.” I step back into the control room, as if saying the words aloud will help me comprehend them. “You … you crashed our ships. You thrust us into this waking nightmare—”

  A soft, sad smile spreads over Faye’s face. “Not exactly, cari. Before I explain, take off your helmet, Laura.”

  She pronounces my name wrong, and the sound of those syllables so mangled in her mouth aches more than almost anything. Still, the nanomechs in my blood respond, forcing me to lift my hands and remove the EDDA’s helmet.

  “I don’t want you to be able to engage your helmet’s noise-cancelling features, now,” she says.

  “And you called me the malinchista.” I slide a cold note into my voice, even as my heart cleaves itself in two. I have locked eyes with the monster of betrayal before; I am acquainted with the emotional carnage it leaves in its wake. Three months ago, it sank its teeth into my throat. Now it has come for my heart. “You knew about what the Smithsons had done to me, but didn’t try to help me escape them?”

  She presses her lips together in a bloodless line, saying nothing.

  “You let me suffer,” I say. “You tried to kill me.”

  “To be fair, I tried to kill everyone,” she says drily. “It wasn’t personal, Laura.”

  “The hell it wasn’t. You’re supposed to be my best friend!”

  “Am I?” she asks, keeping her gun pointed at my chest. I put my hands up and back toward the control room windows. “This is the first time you’ve seen past my mask. Am I really the person you thought you knew?”

  I shake my head slowly, as the pain builds in my chest. “No,” I say, backing up a step. “N-no, I’ve known you since we were children—”

  “You were easier to play than some, cari,” she says. “It’s easy to dupe the girl who thinks she’s smarter than everyone else in the room, the girl who will knock you out with your own bioware and set herself up to take the blame for you.”

  “I don’t think about myself like that.” Though I admit, I’m analyzing the situation and looking for loopholes, looking for a way to outplay Faye. There has to be some way out of this situation that doesn’t involve a bullet in my head or chest. Think, Laura! But my brain keeps latching onto the variable of Faye’s gun. Or it reminds me she could use the subjugator to order me to kill myself on the spot. That’s not to mention my added complication—the EDDA’s powerpac continues to dwindle, with little more than 15 percent of its battery life left. If the EDDA dies, I’ll lose Dr. Morgan and there won’t be a way to salvage her connectome before the ship expires. The ship will fail without Dr. Morgan, and everyone I love will die.

  I’ve got to outwit Faye.

  “Well, you’re not the smartest person in this room,” she says with a smirk. “After all, I did just follow you all the way across the ship. And my father and I did outsmart you back on the Conquistador—while I pretended to be at the party, he confronted you in the Narrows, and then distracted you while I placed a very long distance call back to the Colonies.”

  “To whom?”

  She shrugs. “Someone had to warn the resistance.”

  “Is that what you call yourselves, a resistance?” I spit. “You’re terrorists.”

  “You’ve written so many scholarly papers on Pitch Dark, but you still don’t understand us, do you?” she says, her brows knitting together across her forehead. “To the resistance, you human apologists are the terrorists, making excuses for a species capable of destroying a living planet. You are the empire looking to colonize a new world, without having addressed the evils that drove you to destroy your last. Look at what the Smithsons did to you, Laurita! They used their technology to try and seize resources, selfishly attempting to rip apart a community and family in order to get what they want.…”

  The words spill out of her so quickly, she pauses to take a steadying breath. I’m surprised to see tears glittering in her eyes. “You’re the historian here,” she says. “Don’t you see that this has been humanity’s story since the beginning of time? All we ever do is cycle through our misery.”

  “¿Y que? Misery, past and present, doesn’t give you the right to sentence five hundred million people to death,” I say, choosing my words with precision, while looking for an opening in her defenses. “I’m not going to give up on the future, just because there are moments of pain in our past.”

  “You should,” she says. “We’ve had more than moments, cari.”

  “But I won’t.”

  “I know.” She shakes her head. “There you are, always insisting that people are good and deserving of empathy, even when they’ve burned down the world. You little fool.”

  “I think you are good, Faye,” I say softly, and it’s true. “You’re still my best friend … even if you are a real bruja.”

  “Do they make those old ‘best friends’ necklaces for archnemeses—you know, best friends for never?”

  I laugh, dislodging an ache in my chest. For a second, I forgot she was holding me at gunpoint, ready and willing to take my life. She sounded like Faye again—my Faye. The chambers of my heart constrict at the thought, because I realize the girl I loved was never more than a smoke screen. My Faye wasn’t real.

  “I suppose this is good-bye,” Faye says. “Get on your knees, Laura.”

  My subjugator kicks into action, ratcheting my heart rate up several speeds. The EDDA’s helmet slides back into the suit, and my legs almost crumple beneath me. I hit the ground so hard, my knees clack on the rusted floor. The pain reverberates up my body, even aching in the pits of my teeth.

  “Stay, Laura,” she says, as if I’m some sort of dog that can be commanded.

  My mind races through my options, searching frantically for a way out while keeping track of my ten-second buffer. “You really are going to kill me, aren’t you?” I ask, trying to keep her talking.

  Faye crosses the room, coming to stand behind me. She places the rifle’s muzzle against the back of my skull. “It was a very good game, wasn’t it? You did better than I expected you to, pulling that last-minute stunt with the shipbuilder. In the end, I still held the trump card—your subjugator.”

  “Hija de puta.”
I chuckle, before my breath seizes in my chest.

  The subjugator let me insult Faye. She told me to stay, not stop. I wriggle my fingers. Inch my right leg back a few centimeters. Faye stands close to me, within striking distance—so certain she’s won, she hasn’t realized her mistake.

  “Sticks and stones, cari,” Faye says, nudging my head with the gun. “Resistance leaders have tipped off the ISG about the John Muir, mostly as a stunt. By the time the authorities arrive, all that will be left of this place is a husk, plus a few survivors shivering in a dark corner of a ship. Are there any last words your tearful, heartbroken best friend can relay to the world for you, Laura Cruz?”

  Before she can fire, a deep groan resounds through the ship. “What was that?” Faye whispers. I watch her boots pivot, just a little, as she turns to look over her shoulder.

  She screams.

  USS JOHN MUIR NPS-3500

  DEEPDOWNS

  TUCK

  Well, I found a way inside the bridge, which is awesome.

  But there’s a hitch.

  A really, really big hitch.

  A tentacle snakes around my mecha’s waist. The metal squeals, denting inward. I suddenly empathize with every soda can I crushed back on Earth, especially as the creature grabs me and yanks me into the bridge. The world whirls, like I’m on the universe’s most god-awful carnival ride. Confusing. My stomach bucks till the movement stops.

  Ten seconds ago, I floated outside the ship, cutting into what I thought was just some membrane-like plug over a hole in the ship. Turns out it wasn’t a membrane at all.

  It was a monster. The biggest damned griefer I’ve ever seen, too.

  “Tuck!” Alex shouts. As far as I can tell, both he and Sebastian are still outside the bridge, near the windows. “What the hell is that thing? How did you get”—cough—“into the bridge?!”

  “No way,” Sebastian says. “No effing way. You guys are on your own with that thing!”

  My head clears. I find myself face-to-fester with the bridge ceiling. Which means I’m high. Several stories high. Dinner-plate-sized suckers sweep past the cockpit window, the flesh the color of rancid milk. The surface looks nubbly, finger and elbows and toes sticking past the skin, like it took a hundred mourners to build this one piece of monster. Some sort of goo coats the mecha’s windshield—the wipers only manage to smear it across the glass.

  The mecha’s cabin lights shudder on and off as the tentacle squeezes me tight. My coglink picks up a high-pitched whine, one that grinds into the side of my skull like a buzz saw. Pain spikes in my right temple. I groan.

  Stella. Great.

  There’s a giant space monster on the Muir’s bridge.

  Because of course there’s a giant space monster on the Muir’s bridge.

  “Tuck!” Alex shouts. “Can you hear me? Dammit, I’ll check under the ship—”

  “Don’t!” I shout, but the tentacle drops me.

  Have I mentioned there’s still gravity aboard the Muir?

  I plummet three stories in seconds, the back of my mecha crashing into the bridge floor. The impact jams the breath from my lungs. The back of my helmet strikes my seat. I’m dazed as hell, for I don’t know how long, before my gaze focuses on the pale shadow of a tentacle rising over me.

  I jam the mecha controls left, rolling sideways as the monster slams its tentacle into the floor. I feel the vibration, the crack of the metal through the outer hull of my mecha, but it’s weird for everything to happen so silently. To see the ground split open like a lightning bolt, to feel its tremors in my gut, but for it not to register in my ears; especially after having been so terrified of sound for so long.

  Note to self—do not get hit by the tentacles.

  I scramble to my mecha’s feet as the rest of the tentacles rise through the hole in the bridge. Some tentacles are as thick as a California redwood at the base, tapering to a fine point at the end. The tentacles branch, too, which makes them look like a massive network of striped veins. Nothing’s visible through the maelstrom, except a clutch of green-white eyes that burn like phosphor.

  The terrorists in the outboard station called this beast the Queen Mother.

  And I thought I had mommy issues.

  I glance through the control room windows. Laura’s gone. The server room door’s shut. If I want to help her, I’ll have to go through this thing first.

  I start my mecha’s ion blade. The teeth on its massive, two-meter-long blade glow so bright, they slice through shadows. I’ll cut off every one of Queenie’s damned tentacles if I have to—if she’s going to stand between me and Laura, she’s going to lose a few limbs.

  Or all of them.

  She swings the tip of one tentacle around. I saw it off, the ion blade running through her flesh. Her black blood sprays over my windshield as she retracts her tentacle, fast. Three more shoot out in its place.

  “Ah crap, ah crap-crap-crap!” I shout, hitting the mecha’s thrusters to leap over them. The mecha’s head slams into a piece of metal that’s been bent up from the deck, and I tumble straight into the tentacles’ grips. One snatches me up, whips me around, tosses me straight into a wall. I nose-dive into the ground, my windshield cracking with the force of the blow.

  This is going well.

  “Where are you?” Alex shouts into the comms. “You okay, man?”

  “No!” I roll over to avoid another tentacle, jabbing my ion saw straight up and into the flesh. When Queenie rips her tentacle back, she saws herself open. Hot blood splashes over the deck as she yanks her limb away. “I’m not okay, but thanks for asking!”

  “Did you get into the bridge through this giant hole?” Alex asks.

  “Do you want to die?” I ask him. “Don’t come in here!”

  “I’m not going to leave you alone in there, vato.”

  “Damn you and your honor.” I shut my ion saw off, dart across the bridge, hit the floor, and slide under a bent metal ledge. Queenie slams a tentacle down, making the whole floor shake. Another tentacle tries to slip around my ankle. I kick it off, then scramble forward. Duck behind a large pile of junk. My heart’s beating so hard, it’s a fragging miracle it’s not busting down my ribs like bowling pins.

  “What do we do with it?” Alex asks.

  “Let’s start with kill it!” I say as something yanks me from my hiding place. A big tentacle pulls me over a mound of rubble, dangling me high in the air by my mecha’s foot. Queenie roils below me. Down on the deck, Alex ducks, dodges, slices, and fights his way toward the control room. His mecha’s coated in gore. I don’t know how he’s standing his ground—Queenie had me on the run. Despite his injuries, Alex makes piloting the mecha look easy.

  I kind of hate him for that.

  “Tuck, hey!” Alex shouts through the comms, turning his mecha toward me. “Need some help?”

  “Oh, no,” I say, sarcasm dripping through my tone. “I’m really enjoying being strung up by my ass!”

  “Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit, gringo,” he snaps back.

  “That’s punning!” I say, slicing off the tip of another tentacle that swings too close.

  “Pun-derful, maybe!”

  “You did not just make a pun—”

  The tentacles unfurl, exposing Queenie’s center. Wave upon wave of serrated teeth rise in her triangular mouth. Those devolve into an entire nest of spines down the monster’s ribbed throat. I’m staring down into a whirlpool of death. Forty-eight hours ago, I might’ve looked into that abyss and felt nothing but relief.

  Now, I want to survive. There’s a life for me outside the walls of the Muir, and I want it. Bad.

  The tentacle bucks, dropping me into the creature’s maw. My mecha suit tumbles through the air. I slam into one of Queenie’s big teeth. I’m stunned. The monster tilts, increasing the incline and sliding me toward the abyss. I jam my ion saw into the gummy flesh beside me, stopping my fall.

  I don’t think she likes my ion-saw-turned-giant-space-monster-toothpick. She grabs
me bodily and flings me from her mouth. I bounce head over mecha feet across the bridge, coming to rest by the far wall. My ion saw shuts off.

  One thing’s for damn sure—I’m really, really tired of playing crash test dummy for the universe’s biggest piece of sushi.

  Alex charges toward me, using his mecha to help me off the floor. We duck behind a nearby pillar of junk. “You okay?” he asks.

  I groan in reply. My mecha’s beat to hell—the hull breached, my windshield cracked, the left arm now nonfunctional. I’m sure I don’t look any better. I sure as hell don’t feel any better. I peer around the pillar, keeping an eye on our resident space monster.

  “Listen,” he says, pointing to the glowing eyes on the top of Queenie’s head. “We’ll have a better chance if we take out the eyes. Without sound, she’s relying on her vision to track our positions.”

  “You got a plan?” I ask as Queenie’s tentacles surge forth, searching for us.

  “That’s it.”

  “That’s not a plan!”

  “It’s an objective.”

  “An objective is not a plan!” I say, but the tentacles surge between us, forcing us to leap away from each other.

  “Get her eyes,” Alex says to me, lopping off another bit of Queenie. “I’ll distract her.”

  “Okay, that’s almost a plan—”

  A tentacle swings from my left, colliding with my mecha. The cockpit shatters around me. The cabin lights shut down. Something sharp spears me in the gut. I’m thrown. My mecha plows through the bridge’s big windows, which shatter under the pressure. The cockpit beeps uncontrollably.

  Someone shouts, “Tuck!” through the comms.

  Stars twinkle around me.

  I’m outside the ship.

  I am moving away from the ship.

  Fast.

  By the windows, the monster’s tentacles retract into the bridge.

  Get out, I tell myself. Gotta get out, get out, get out.

  I unbuckle my harness to the mecha, groaning as a spike of pain hits me from abdomen to head.

  Crawl from the cockpit.

  And jump.