by K. Gorman
Ethan’s mother, she’d learned, had been killed in a Nova Earth inner city. That’s why his stepfather had decided to head to the outskirts.
The Ozark was a passenger runner. They’d been scheduled to make an empty run to Clemens, the planet just beyond Amosi, grab the colony there, and shift them elsewhere. One of the moons, probably.
Whatever the case, none objected to her plan to bring the Ozark back to Caishen. She hadn’t brought up the subject of taking some fuel rods for the Nemina, but they had another five days of talking for that.
Although—maybe they shouldn’t head off to Caishen just yet. Getting closer increased the chance of capture. And the chance that Charise, or one of her sympathizers, might get on the comms to Hopper and get them arrested.
Of course, if she tried to help the people at Caishen…
Maybe she could make a deal.
No. That was stupid and risky. Too many factors involved. Hopper would take the deal, for sure—he had his wife to think about—but Caishen was an Alliance station. Once his wife was healed, she couldn’t trust him not to backstab her.
Her jaw clenched. They’d left Charise behind in the Mess, but she could still feel the woman’s eyes on her. Staring. Accusing.
She shook the feeling off and returned her focus to the hall. Now was not the time to scheme. They had a job to do.
Sometimes, the Shadows had a way of manipulating the lights around her. It didn’t matter that the bulbs were still intact and functioning, or that the power was on with no faults—the Shadows just turned them off. It had happened at Songbird, where every single light in the complex had been rendered useless, and also in the cargo hold when Soo-jin had been taken.
She could do it, too, to a certain effect. Take the light and absorb it into her skin. But she had a feeling that the Shadows had a different tactic they employed, like the flip side of her coin.
Yet another reason she suspected Seirlin Corp’s involvement. As if the ruins, and her lights effect on the Shadows, weren’t proof enough.
So far, though the Ozark still ran on emergency reserve protocol, this was the only hallway that hadn’t flickered on when they opened the door. She stared through the open threshold, her flashlight beam piercing a few meters into the darkness to catch two metal struts near the side. Dormant light tubes gleamed back at her from the ceiling, their white casing giving a ghost-like tint.
“Get ready,” Soo-jin told the group. “Shadows move fast.”
A quiet anxiety filled her stomach as they filed in. Someone had set the door to stay open, letting in light from behind them, but it wasn’t long before the darkness swallowed them. The taps and clicks of feet and weapons made a blurred echo down the length of the hall. Closer, the sounds of quick, shallow breathing filled her ears. Flashlight beams swept over the same style of pipes and struts she’d seen in most other hallways, but the mercurial tint of their light turned them at once alien and unfamiliar.
They can probably turn flashlights off, too. A bulb and battery pack was not altogether different from the dead, hard-wired fixtures above them.
The thought made a jolt of energy pulse under her skin. Her light, not quite pushing through, sat in the cell structure of her muscles and bones, making it tingle.
She’d never figured out how it worked. Even after their escape, away from the brainwashed confines of the compound where her ability had seemed so normal, comparatively, and introduced to the idea that what she did was not possible, she’d never been able to figure it. She’d practiced slowly, moved the energy inside her, felt its subtleties itch through her bones, but the whole process seemed impossible. Even augments needed a support system for what they did—surgical preparation.
Of course, she’d had quite a few surgeries in the compound, only some of which she remembered. Maybe she did have a support system, albeit undetected and invisible to every normal clinic she’d visited.
They’re taking our memories, Rin.
A shiver of fear ran through her as some of the group paused ahead, midway down the hall. One person had jogged ahead to the opposite door, his light searching the corners for Shadows in an unpracticed mimicry of a soldier’s sweep. As he came back, the beam cut through the dark, catching parts of the walls and ceiling in a quick, jerky arc. Darkness swallowed the end of the hallway behind him. She felt it all around her, too, pressing at her back and shoulders. A sense of emptiness that pricked at her consciousness in a much different way than her light did.
Marc had called this the ‘horror movie filter,’ the way the flashlights cut through the hallway.
Actually, she suspected that term had applied to their entire trip last time, when they had been wandering through what had essentially been a ghost ship, still reeling from the first Shadow attack and exceedingly aware of how vulnerable they were. The Ozark had been when they’d first discovered the Lost.
Gods, Marc. A niggle of worry threaded through her brain, tightening the skin on her forehead. It’d be days before she heard anything back from them.
“We should send the others in ahead of you,” Soo-jin said beside her. “We can’t risk you getting disabled.”
Her head jerked up. “What? No. I’m going in with you.”
“Actually, she’s right.” Arren, wielding one of the few blasters in the group, swung up to her other side, checking its charge reading. “You’re a vulnerable asset, so you stick to the back. That’s how it is in the military, right, Nick?”
Nick, near the front with the other blaster, nodded. “Yep. Vulnerable and valuable to the back, unless they’re crucial to the front line.”
She frowned. “I am crucial. My light hurts them.”
“So do guns and knives and sticks.” Arren finished his check and turned his blaster down, tip aimed at the floor. His eyes caught the light as he looked her way. “You can come after us and shoot the light over our heads, right?”
Right. But it still felt like she was leaving them to take the shots for her. ‘Cannon fodder’ was a popular term in netgames, but she’d never liked the term when it applied to actual, living humans. Even the Border Wars had used bots for their front lines.
“Just stay back, Kar. Do what you can.” Soo-jin lifted her head up, surveying the group. “We about ready?”
Her jaw stiffened as the rest of the group moved past her, grouping around the door. Varying weapons stuck out from the group: pipes, wrenches, a couple of hammers, someone with one of the metal trays from Mess. She jammed the flashlight into her back pocket and took a moment to flex her fingers.
Light shivered to the surface like a fine mist, then thickened to its regular milk-like consistency. Her skin tingled as she pushed it around with a thought, making it swirl against her palm.
Ahead, Nick keyed in the door’s emergency override. The panel at the side remained dark. For a split second, Karin thought they were done, that they couldn’t get through and would have to find another way in.
Then the door hissed open.
No one said ‘go.’ Everyone just surged forward at once. Footsteps tapped and slapped on the floor, and the sounds of heavy breathing filled the air. Gaps formed ahead of her, and she found herself being pulled forward. She ducked her head through the threshold of the door, funneled through a narrow hallway, ignoring two passages that branched off on either side as the group’s motion dragged her forward. Light staccato-ed ahead of her. Someone gave a great, wordless yell, like a battle cry. A gun cracked, then another.
Then everything descended into chaos.
She spilled out onto the bridge, veering sharply to avoid the first set of desks, and nearly ran into the navigation chair. People were fighting. A Shadow slammed into a person along the wall and sent him sprawling. She lost them a second later as both blasters cracked, spraying light onto the other side of the room. The bridge had a low, stepped design, each level leading toward the front windows. Feeling for the edge of the desk, she eased down to the next level, then lifted her head to survey the Shadows.
Six of them. Maybe more. Already, some had fallen. One man, barely more than a boy, lay limp as his friend dragged him away, a darkness trickling from his forehead. Another lay half-forgotten under the console, tucked away between the chairs. His hand hung over the lip of the floor, dangling over the step on her level.
But the people had the advantage. Despite the Shadow’s odd, unintuitive movements, they lacked weapons. And they could be hurt.
As she watched, Soo-jin lunged forward and knifed one through the arm. It let go of the man it had grabbed.
Two blaster bolts froze it in place.
Dead.
They were winning. They could do this.
Keeping part of the desk between herself and the action, she lifted her hands, searching for targets. Light flowed from her fingers like a sliver of moonshine.
Movement made her turn. At the front of the ship, right where the black windows met the metal walls, two Shadows unfolded out of the darkness and straightened.
She didn’t hesitate. Whirling, she thrust her hands forward. Light exploded from her hands like twin missiles.
The entire bridge flashed white.
The Shadows staggered back from the hit, and a roar went through her head, dragging across the front of her brain with a snarl. She winced at the force of it.
Are they psychic?
Despite her unconventional childhood, the only psychic experience she had came from show streams and netfiction.
No time to question it now. Both Shadows had recovered. As one, they had stopped, their heads tilted to the side, pausing as if to consider her. Depthless, they silhouetted against the dark windows by their absence. Her reflection glimmered back from the glass, marked by light. Her power climbed along her arms, glowing upward like water, taking on a golden edge.
“Watch out!”
Soo-jin’s shout made her whirl. She jerked out of the way just in time to dodge a Shadow that charged her from the side. Its shoulder bumped into her, sending her scrambling against the back of the navigation desk. It billowed up as she recovered, changing like one of those wind puppets that had been snapped up by a changing gust. Bulbous, shivering, incomplete, it darted for her.
Her light caught it in the chest. She skipped back as it fell forward, light and shadow flashing in her eyes. A cool, shivery feeling touched her skin as it made contact, sinking through her flesh like a ghost. She held her breath and closed her eyes as its torso fell over her head and rib cage.
Then it was gone.
A blaster bolt caught one of the other Shadows at the front of the bridge, followed in quick succession by another one that cracked into the second Shadow. She winced at the bolts being so close to the Ozark’s frontal glass. One small crack, and the whole window would shatter.
But they didn’t go through and, a second later, the Shadows dissolved.
Flashlights swept around, less erratic than they had been before. As she caught her breath, she realized that the activity on the bridge had slowed, replaced by a quiet, cautious silence. People stood around, checking the corners with their lights, surveying the place. After a few moments, some squatted down to check the wounded.
A jolt of fear made her heart jump.
Gods, had anyone died?
But she saw one person move, and others. No one cried, or otherwise grieved, though their faces carried a grave seriousness as they performed basic medical checks.
“All clear?” Soo-jin said, loud enough for her voice to carry across the bridge.
“As far as I can tell, yes.” Arren, standing by the entrance door, jerked his head toward the room. “Boys?”
At his command, Nick and two others stepped forward. They performed a professional sweep, swinging their flashlights around, checking through the levels and the two and a half hallways that branched off, and she really didn’t blame them when they turned their lights to check under desks and chairs and even up toward the ceiling. The Shadows had proven impossible and scary. No telling where they might hide.
She stepped to the side as they dropped down past her, feeling the floor reverberate with their boot steps. Then Soo-jin’s voice, softer this time, called her attention to the far end of the room.
“Karin, over here.”
Four people stood midway down a small half-hall that branched from the main bridge, their lights all on one person. A pang pulled at her heart as she recognized him.
She had seen him once before, afar and in passing—a lone figure who had been sitting on the Ozark’s bridge when they’d first investigated—but her connection to Ethan, and the small, shared stories he’d told of his stepfather, made the ache in her heart widen through her chest.
He’d wandered in close to the bridge’s manual override panels during the fight. They bulged from the left-hand wall, metal boxes full of analog switches and latches. Despite the ship’s standby status, most of them flashed green through the mesh grating that covered its sides. Christops Grivas looked much as he had when they’d first seen him. Clad in shipboard grays, he’d managed to keep away from the disheveled appearance the others had taken on.
Perhaps the isolation had helped. With only the bridge to interact with, he hadn’t been able to get himself into too much trouble.
Two people parted to let her pass, and their flashlight beams shifted on his body. His eyes found hers, blacker than pitch, holding a depthless edge of the Shadow inside him that pricked at her instincts.
She relaxed.
It’s over.
But, as she let her light flare and lifted her hands, he made a sound.
The low, anxious gasp stopped her in her tracks. Her eyes widened as his mouth dropped open. Saliva slicked his lips and shone in the beams. She stumbled back as he took a step toward her, one arm raising up, fingers pointing.
“Eos,” he said.
Ice rushed through her body, head to toe. With horror and mounting confusion, she saw a change in his eyes. The blackness shifted inside. It began to bleed out in thin wisps, trailing into the air and fading. More came from his mouth, dispelling like a fog. Thin lines rose from his skin.
“Oh, Gods.” Soo-jin breathed in sharply. “What the fuck?”
His mouth moved again, working in a slow, gnawing motion.
“Eos,” he said again. “Help us.”
Queasiness rolled through her stomach as he lurched forward, blackness trailing him like smoke, but she held her ground.
Hardening her resolve, she set her shoulders and moved forward. Light flashed between them, crackling where it meshed with the dark. She pushed it into his eyes, into his brain.
He jerked and fell forward. The Shadow rose out of him like a reaping ghost, pulling tatters of darkness with it, and two blasters cracked behind her.
By the time Christops hit the floor, it was already blowing apart.
The bridge went dead silent. Around her, everyone held still, as if waiting. Her hands shook, and she quickly dropped them to her sides, re-absorbing the light.
Eos. That had been the codename for her treatment, back on Earth. Named after a Grecian dawn goddess.
She drew in a ragged breath. How had Christops Grivas known that?
He couldn’t have. No way.
And who was ‘us’?
Her eyes widened.
Was that the Shadow who had spoken?
Mind whirling, she pushed the thought back. Caishen was five days away. She had lots of time to think about it, and they weren’t finished here yet.
Soo-jin squatted down and checked Christops’ pulse, then Nick helped her roll him into a recovery position. When she looked up again, her dark eyes had narrowed into seriousness. “Can we all agree not to tell Ethan that happened?”
“Yeah, I think we can do that.” Arren stepped into the inner ring of people, frowning down at Christops’ prone form. “Does that happen a lot?”
“It’s never happened,” Soo-jin said. “They don’t talk. I mean—” She shifted her gaze. “Karin, I’m not crazy, right
? That was weird as shit?”
“You’re not crazy.” She cleared her throat and shook her head, rubbing the ridge of her nose between her eyes. “But I might be.”
“What?”
“Arren, could you send a message to Caishen for me?”
Soo-jin stiffened. “Karin, what the fu—”
She turned her shoulder, blocking her out, rushing through the words before she could think to take them back. “Tell Hopper I’ll heal his people, but I have conditions that he needs to meet.”
Chapter 16
“Are you insane?” Soo-jin hissed in her ear, following Karin as she made the rounds of the Ozark’s double-dashboard nav system, plunking in commands and checking system ops. “We can’t go to Caishen.”
“Yes, we can.”
Her voice came out calm and confident, but the inside of her chest tightened at the thought. She pushed the feeling down, squinting forward at the holoscreen, suddenly finding the normal boot-up readings from the Ozark’s engines much more intriguing than looking toward her friend’s face just now.
“Nemina’ll need fuel rods, anyway,” she added.
In her peripheral vision, Soo-jin crossed her arms over her chest. Karin couldn’t see the details in her glower, but she knew her well enough to imagine her dark, take-no-shit look and narrowed eyes.
“We’ll take some of Ozark’s. They won’t mind.”
“That’ll leave them stranded.”
“Big ship like this, they’ll have plenty of rods—and you know it.” Soo-jin grabbed her shoulder. “Cut the crap, Kar. What’s the deal?” Her eyes narrowed further, searching Karin’s face. “Do you really want to heal Hopper’s people?”
She hesitated.
Soo-jin hissed again. “Gods fuck it, Karin. You can’t go around saving everyone!”
She lifted her chin. “They’ll have a much better op if I heal their people and get them back on track. They’re the only waypoint this side of the map. The system needs them.”