Dominion Rising: 23 Brand New Novels from Top Fantasy and Science Fiction Authors

by Gwynn White

  I don’t want to try it out for myself.

  Still, though, I can almost sense the draining pull of the blackhole.

  “Hurry up, Clem!” PC shouts behind me. He’s closing in on me since I slowed down to take a look.

  Right. I tear my eyes away from the pit and continue my trek across the gap. My retina tells me how far I have to go, and I use it as my countdown to finding solid ground again.

  300 meters.

  200 meters.

  100 meters.

  50 meters.

  10.

  3.

  I let out a loud sigh as I enter what remains of the Nova’s dock. I know the blackhole is still outside, but at least there’s some semblance of safety here. I initiate my Grav-Boots again, and I fall to the floor of the dock. As I do so, my retina displays the countdown until the absolute last moment that we can stay on the ship without having to worry about the blackhole. 4 hours and 37 minutes.

  Plenty of time, even with our unscheduled stop. We can do this.

  I turn on my headlamp and look around. The entire dock has been demolished—we’re lucky to even have a place to land here.

  PC arrives about a minute later and turns on his own boots. “Well, that was interesting,” he says, giving me a big smile.

  “I nearly shat my pants,” Daisy grumbles as she joins us. “Did you see the size of that blackhole?”

  “Wish I hadn’t,” I tell her, glad that she’s at least honest about being scared shitless. I like Daisy. She tells it like it is, and nothing ever sways her from that.

  We all turn as Taka joins us, looking a little frightened.

  “That blackhole’s awful, isn’t it?” Daisy asks.

  He only nods.

  “All right, we’re all on board, Orion,” I say.

  “How’s the view over there?” Louis asks.

  “Homey,” PC says sarcastically. “Maybe we should take this over.” He gives a look around to punctuate his point, and I roll my eyes.

  Just like the exterior, the inside of Nova’s dock is also decimated. Chunks of metal and debris float around in zero-G. I brush them out of the way. We continue walking, our Grav-Boots making loud clacking noises as they stick to the metal of the floor. The screen for the airlock is dark, meaning that this ship has no power as well.

  “Think you can handle that, Taka?” I ask.

  “Of course,” he says as he opens the panel. Even though he’d been frightened only moments before, having a task to occupy his mind does enough to take away his fear. His fingers are gloved, but they move quickly as he pulls apart wires, threads them together, and sparks some connections. For a moment, the screen on the door is dark. Then…

  “Got it,” he says.

  I give him an excited squeeze on his shoulder. So far so good. “Can you restore power to the rest of the ship?”

  He taps on the screen, running through a few diagnostic printouts before giving a noncommittal shrug. “I’ll have no problem tapping into the auxiliary power, but it looks like the primary is all offline.”

  “That’s all we need,” I say.

  He nods and taps a few screens. I glance over at PC and Daisy, who both look ill at ease. Sometimes, this part is the most painful—waiting to see what’s on the other side of the door.

  “Can you check for other life forms?” I ask, my voice hoarse.

  Daisy frowns, confused. “Orion already ran a check.”

  I nod. “I know. But things are different once you’re on the ship, and you can’t be too careful.”

  A few more button pushes from Taka, and he says, “None on the ship. They must have fled when the Nova was crippled.”

  “What crippled it if it wasn’t an asteroid belt?” PC asks.

  Taka shakes his head. “It doesn’t say. As I said, we’re only on auxiliary, so I can’t access the mainframe.”

  So we’ll have to worry about that at the bridge. I’ll need to be able to have some computer control in order to access the Nova’s records and downloot them. One step at a time. And as the door whooshes open, I let out a breath of relief.

  “Nice,” I say as I motion everyone to start walking into the main part of the ship. “Let’s go.”

  Daisy gestures for Taka to take the lead, but I see her draw her zapper, at the ready for anything to come our way from the rear.

  I do the same and take point. Oh, and try to act like I’m not terrified, as I remind myself. It’s harder than it looks, but I manage all right with PC at my right. We all have our zappers out, ready in case shit hits the proverbial fan.

  “How is it looking over there?” Captain Louis asks.

  “Fine so far,” I say. “Just moving down the main corridor towards the bridge.”

  “Is the hull breached everywhere on the ship?”

  I look towards the other wall of the ship and see through a hole to space. “Yep. There’s nothing airtight about the Nova anymore.”

  “You know,” PC says, “on old Earth, there was a language called ‘Espanol.’ And in ‘Espanol,’ ‘nova’ meant ‘no-go.’”

  “How the hell do you know that?” Daisy asks.

  PC gives her his most dashing grin. “I can’t spend all my time satisfying the ladies.”

  “Pig,” Daisy mutters under her breath.

  “What?”

  Banter is a good sign. It means that we’re comfortable enough in our surroundings to take our attention off everything—at least for the moment. I don’t join in, as my eyes constantly dart from one area to another, looking for any sign of something amiss. Aside from the chunks taken out of the hull, the Nova looked to be a good, modern ship. Syn-Tech sure knows how to take care of their employees. I notice some details, such as frequent, recessed lighting and concealed seams that make the Pícara look like a piece of junk.

  “According to the maps,” I say as I point to my left, “the mess hall is that way, followed by the dormitories.”

  “We don’t have to go down there, do we?” PC asks.

  I shake my head. “No.” And I don’t want to, either. I don’t want to see if the crew had time to pack their belongings before they abandoned ship. Nor do I want to see if there are any unfortunate souls who didn’t make it to the escape pod.

  “Down that hall,” I say, crossing another one, “is the way to the bridge. And that one, Popcorn, is the route we do have to go.”

  Everyone falls into line behind me as we hurry down the corridor to the bridge. The entire ship is still, like a coffin. My flashlight illuminates the hallways ahead, particles from the ship floating around us like long-forgotten ghosts.

  The door to the bridge is sealed, and I curse soundly as we come up to it.

  “Nothing I can’t handle,” Taka says as he crouches to work on the panel. “Just means that there’s a firewall to keep the auxiliary power from opening the door. In case of invasion.”

  “Which is kind of what we’re doing, isn’t it?” PC asks. I shoot him a look. “What?”

  I roll my eyes and focus on Taka working. Focus on it, because there’s not much else I can do.

  Daisy stands at attention further down the corridor, her zapper at the ready. There’s a tautness to her body, like she’s expecting an ambush. “Did you hear that?” she whispers.

  My blood runs cold. “What?”

  “I didn’t hear anything,” Taka muses, “because there is no sound in the vacuum of space.”

  “Okay,” Daisy says, sounding unconvinced. “Then did you feel that?”

  Did I feel something? I stand straight, looking down the hallway where her flashlight was poised. The only thing I could feel was the pounding of my heart in my chest, as I hoped against hope that there was nothing to feel. Because if that’s true, then…

  I feel a vibration through the metal of my boots, like a faint plink, plink. I look down, wondering if there’s something hitting the exterior of the Nova. I even lift my foot. I tell my internal computer to try to guess what it is based on the distance and the intensi
ty of the vibration.

  The sensation gets stronger, and something in my gut twists, the biological part of me ready to bolt and run. Something’s not right.

  “Taka,” I say in warning. “Hurry.”

  “Almost done,” he says, not picking up the panic in my voice. But PC does, and he frowns my way.

  “What is it?” he asks.

  “I don’t know,” I murmur softly. “But I think it means we’re not alone on this ship.”

  “Told you there was something,” Daisy says a little too smugly.

  The vibrations get stronger and faster. Whatever it is, it’s picked up our scent and it’s headed straight for us. An android perhaps? Or maybe a crewmember who’s wearing such a thick spacesuit, we couldn’t pick up his presence. Do metal boots shake a ship that much, though?

  Maybe if they tread softly. Still, something in me says that we’re not safe here.

  “Taka…”

  “What?” he snaps, looking up at me.

  At just that moment, something turns the corner, and even though there is no sound in space, I can feel the soundwaves as they hit my suit. It’s screaming—loudly—and it doesn’t like us being here.

  And I have no fucking clue what it is.

  The thing is massive, filling up the corridor. There’s no way we can get past it. It has eight spindly metal legs that work mostly in tandem with each other—I can tell that it’s not used to walking though, and one of the legs is broken off at the joint and dangles in the air. The structure reminds me of something familiar, but I can’t put my finger on it.

  That’s where the familiarity stops, though, as it looks like there’s some sort of organism growing on it, liquid pulsating through large blue veins that run right into the machine base. It’s lopsided, with the left larger than the right, and lumpy as fuck. It looks disgusting, and that’s the only word that I can think of for it.

  And then I see an eye and a mouth on the side, with human-looking square teeth, and I scream. Daisy reacts by firing at the thing, catching it on the lumpy side.

  “What’s going on there!” Louis shouts into the intercom.

  PC steps in front of me by Daisy and fires two blasts as well, but the stunning blasts don’t seem to faze it at all. “Set it to kill,” I say through gritted teeth as I raise my own weapon and pull the switch for the intensity of the blasts. Fuck the rule about not killing anyone—I think this thing means to do us harm.

  “Clementine, talk to me!” Louis shouts.

  “We found something!” I shout into the mic.

  The three of us keep firing at the thing, but it keeps advancing.

  “Taka, for the love of galaxies,” PC warns, and I can hear the exertion in his voice.

  “Got it!” Taka says, getting to his feet. I chance a glance behind us to see the doors open, and I gesture for Daisy to go through, then PC. Taka goes inside first and immediately tears open the panel on that side to work on those inner components to close the door behind us. Hopefully, he can get it closed faster than he opened it.

  I increase my firing rate at the risk of overheating my zapper. I can feel the metal of the gun through my gloves, and I wonder if it can melt my space suit.

  “Taka!” I shout as the creature advances, obviously not liking us reaching the bridge. “Taka, close the door!”

  The lone bloodshot eye on the creature watches me and the mouth opens wide, as it barrels its way towards me. I keep firing, but there’s nothing I can do to stop it. I cross the threshold to the bridge, wondering if I should tell my friends to run or hide or get the fuck out.

  “There we are,” Taka sighs as he taps the screen once. The doors slide shut, but not before I get a good look at the beast as it careens toward us. Then the door is shut, and we all breathe a sigh of relief.

  But that doesn’t seem to stop the beast. I feel the pound as the beast rams into the metal door, bending it inward. I glance at Taka, and I can tell that he knows there’s not much time before it breaches the door.

  We don’t have very long to retrieve the patents. And I can’t help but think that we’re running on auxiliary power, which will make it harder to access those records.

  We’re alive, at least for the moment. Although for how much longer, I have no idea.

  11

  What the fuck?” PC shouts, giving a vulgar gesture to the door. He thumps his helmet, a sign that the adrenaline is running through him. “What the fuck is that?!”

  “I don’t know,” I say dryly, turning away from the door as the creature pounds into it again. The door bends a little more under the pressure, but it holds. For now.

  “You don’t know?” he thunders. “You don’t know?!”

  I level him with my gaze and say icily, “It didn’t show up on scanners, it isn’t anything I’ve seen before, and it’s outside for the moment. So no, PC, I have no idea what the fuck it is, and standing here to debate that fact is only going to get us killed.”

  He glares at me but doesn’t say anything else. I’ll consider that issue closed, at least for now.

  “How will we get out of here with that thing blocking us?” Daisy asks.

  “There’s another exit,” I say, a little exasperated that my group has obviously not reviewed the maps as extensively as I have. Then again, when have I ever gone over them with the same fervor that I did this time? I’d always been cocky, thinking that nothing could ever kill us.

  I was so goddamn wrong.

  “Taka,” I say, licking my lips, “help me get the main computer turned on. Daisy and PC, stay at the door and shoot if it comes through.”

  “You got it,” Daisy says, cocking her zapper.

  PC presses his lips into a thin line but nods as he faces the door.

  Taka seems to be out of sorts as he follows me to the console. The bridge is like many other bridges I’ve been on, although this one is much bigger than the Pícara’s, with enough room for at least a dozen crew members to sit here. The captain’s console is easy to find, so I sit down in the chair and face the console. Like I expected, it’s dark with no power running through it.

  “Think you can fix that?” I ask. “And quickly?”

  “I’ll try,” Taka says as he kneels at the front of the console and starts pulling stuff out of it.

  “Don’t try, do,” I mutter as I take off my right glove. My metallic cyborg hand greets me, and I wriggle my fingers, almost in fascination that it all still works. If Taka can connect the power and if that happens before the door fails, I’ll still have to take some time to search for and downloot the information. If the packet is small, then that shouldn’t be a problem.

  If it’s larger, though, then we could very well be screwed.

  “Are you guys all right?” Louis asks, his voice steely.

  “For the moment,” I answer as I call out the plug from my middle finger. “The door’s holding for now.”

  “What is it?” Orion asks, his voice coming over the speaker in my helmet.

  “I don’t know,” I say, inwardly shuddering at the memory of the creature. “It looked like…a bio-mechanical…thing…”

  “It was a modified arachni-lift,” Daisy adds. “You know, one of the machines they use to unload cargo at the docks.”

  That’s where I’d seen it before. I hadn’t put the two together because it seemed so far-fetched that an arachni-lift could end up looking like that.

  “What the hell happened to it?” PC asks, echoing my own thoughts.

  Daisy throws her hands up in the air. “How the fuck should I know?”

  “Guys,” I say placatingly, “we’ll figure that out later. For now, we just have to get this working.”

  “This isn’t worth 300 million Space Yen,” PC mutters under his breath.

  “Clementine.” I pause at the sound of Orion’s voice. “This is just a private line between you, Captain Louis, and me. Mute your microphone.”

  I press the button. “Okay.”

  “Clem,” Louis says, his voice
rough, “should we pull out of this job? Are you in danger of being killed?”

  I hesitate and look around at Taka who is trying to power up the console, and at PC and Daisy, who are guarding the door. I think of everyone back on the ship who gave up some hope and time to make it here. Were we fools for thinking that this would have been an easy run? Did we foolishly ignore the signs that this was doomed from the start?

  “I don’t know,” I admit softly.

  Another shudder rocks the bridge. I glance back at the door and see PC and Daisy aiming their zappers at it.

  Suddenly, the console roars to life, and I nearly sob with relief.

  “It’s ready,” Taka says.

  I re-open my coms for everyone to hear. “Good. Now, get that door to start working and have it ready for when we need to run.” I point the door on the opposite side of the bridge. It connects with the rest of the ship via the dormitories and the mess hall. It looks like we’ll be able to see how the crewmembers of the Nova lived, although I doubt we’ll stay for tea.

  I imagine we’ll be running the entire way.

  I navigate the computer to the documents screen and then insert my finger into the port. A hiss escapes my lips as the shock rocks through me. That had been unexpected. I didn’t think that the computer would have that much zing as I plugged myself in. I gag, feeling my tongue blister with the electrostatic charge.

  “Ow, fuck.”

  “Sorry,” Taka says. “I diverted most of the auxiliary power to that console.”

  “I noticed,” I mutter as I access the computer, tearing down the firewalls with the usual methods. It’s a bit harder this time, but it only takes me another couple of seconds to improvise and find a workaround.

  I get in.

  I inhale sharply as I’m bombarded by an operating system that feels different on my brain and on my circuits. It’s a newer format than any of the others that I’ve been in. The data packets are smaller, and the entire thing is organized differently.