by K. Gorman
She wasn’t sure, but she thought the yet might have made the difference. He stilled, going quiet, and his stare raked across her shoulders as he looked up.
“What are you going to do?” he asked.
Inwardly, she cringed. His voice was raw, but she heard the hope.
And she was shaking.
I’m going to do what I came here to find out, she thought, pushing up her sleeves to show more of her skin.
Instead, she said, “Something weird. Please don’t run. I promise I’m not a bad guy.”
She took a steadying breath. Then she raised her hands, palms backwards, and stepped ahead.
The Shadow rippled at the movement. Its quiet regard of her deepened. She thought it might have grown, as if its motion had gained it an inch or two, the same way a fire might in a shift of wind.
Maybe they were fluid, or like a gel. Hells, they looked like a fog. A very dense, impenetrable fog. If the strange, blurred border at its edges hadn’t been there, it would have been more manageable to her brain. As it was, something about it was hard to look directly at, and it still didn’t have a definable depth to her eyes. Maybe, if it turned sideways, she would see that it was paper thin.
But it could touch things. Interact with them. And things could interact with it.
Some laws of reality had to hold.
Fortunately for her, bits of her defied reality, too.
She bared her teeth and reached out with her mind. Images came to her, sliding like a projection reel—Nomiki, the field, the ruins, the sunset. And above it all, ever present, the stars. Even without seeing them, their light called to her.
Her skin tingled as she pulled on that call. Light seeped through her skin like liquid. Droplets pulsed on the underside of her forearms, their energy humming against the tiny hairs there like thin, glowing milk. It reflected off her face, off the underside of her chin, off her neck. It reached her eyes, tentative, growing. Even her irises adjusted.
The Shadow attacked.
Karin didn’t have time to think, only react. Light smashed from her hands, driving it back. She chased, ducking as it twisted and flailed, a hand sweeping over her head, and she pushed her light into it.
Light and shadow flashed, crackling together.
Then it twisted away—an impossible morph of its body—and flew back several steps, out of immediate reach.
She straightened. Light shone from her hands like swords, its beams a part-way physical presence.
Part-way physical, just like the Shadow monsters. Impossible, but real.
That was what she had wanted to see.
The Shadow regarded her for a few seconds. It seemed smaller than before. It also listed, as if hurt.
Good. Let it fear me.
Just as the thought rolled through her head, she realized how stupid it was. She was Project Eos, not Enyo. She was not a soldier. Except for the light, and the occasional lucky swing with a helmet, she had zero fight skills.
She had to end this before the Shadow figured that part out.
“Ethan, you keeping an eye on the back?” she asked. “I don’t want another of these creeping up.”
When he didn’t reply right away, her heart spiked in her chest—then clothes rustled behind her.
“All clear.”
The kid was probably a little overwhelmed at this point. She really didn’t blame him for that.
Gods, what must she look like right now?
She didn’t want to think of that.
She straightened and took a step forward. Light flared under her hands, making the dim shadows on the walls jump like strobes.
The real Shadow didn’t jump. Instead, it seemed to have regained some of its earlier height. She had to look up to see its face. Its edges rippled and blurred, like a meniscus of water.
Then it raised an impossibly-long arm. Long, slender fingers, bending and moving more like fog than anything solid, reached out to her, shifting in and out of visibility. They reminded her of a ragged cloak, blowing in the wind.
She shot a beam of light into its head.
The Shadow recoiled. Then it froze, mid-frame.
The light dissolved it from the inside out like white embers. The Shadow tattered apart, black ribbons of it dissolving before it hit the floor.
Slowly, the rest of her light dissipated from her fingers. When she recovered from her shock, she pulled the remainder back to her, re-absorbing its energy like balls of quicksilver.
She turned around.
Ethan stood farther up the hallway where she had left him, wide-eyed and awkward. He didn’t move as she made her way back.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
He nodded. His eyes never left hers.
She wasn’t quite sure what to make of it.
“Okay, then.” She turned back to the door. “Let’s—”
A tug on her shirt brought her up short. She twisted, glancing back at him.
To her surprise, he put his hand back into hers.
“Can I stay with you?” he asked.
She almost laughed. “Okay, but you have to promise me something.”
“What?” His eyes, wide, never far from fear, searched her face.
She squeezed his hand.
“Don’t ever tell anyone about what I can do.”
“Marc, I’ve locked the stairwell. You’ll have to use an override to get through it.”
Karin glanced down the hallway. She’d dropped Ethan off at the air bridge—Soo-jin would take care of him there—and was heading back down into the ship. Except for the Shadow, their trip had been uneventful.
“Got it,” he said. “You still here?”
“Yep. Where you at?”
“Close to the bridge. You wanted to go there, right? Change the broadcast?”
She sighed. Maybe he was right, and they should just put a ping on the relay. It’s not like the ship was going anywhere. Anyone with a decent shipboard comms system should get both warnings.
“How’s it look?”
“Dark and spooky. Not sure I’d want to hide out in a closet over here.”
“I wouldn’t. Those Shadows move pretty fast. And they aren’t stupid.”
“You got that right.” He swore. “Still gives me the heebies just thinking about them.”
“Yo, guys,” Soo-jin cut in. “Kid says you can patch into the bridge from an auxiliary port down by engineering. It might be safer.”
“Is it a full override or partial?” Marc asked.
“Don’t know. Might be worth a go, though?”
“How does he know this?” Karin asked.
“Says his dad was second officer. Showed him a few things.”
An image of the lone figure on the bridge floated through her mind, and a sudden pang of sadness pulled at her heart. This was a story that, she feared, did not end happily for him.
“Let’s try that,” she said into the radio. “I’d like to avoid Shadows if at all possible.”
That was the truth, at least. Her last encounter had just reminded her of how vulnerable she was. Even if she had come out on top, it could have ended very differently.
And if one snuck up behind her…
Well, she was only human.
As she brought up the map, skimming through the schematics to engineering, Marc groaned into the radio.
“Shit,” he said. “That’s close to where I dropped all those people.”
“You think they’re still moving?”
“Hell if I know. I didn’t exactly stick around to watch.”
“Maybe you’ll get to play Pied Piper again. Can you two get closer? I’ll put a marker on your maps. Green is Marc, red Karin.”
“Red’s unlucky,” Marc said. “Use blue.”
“Red is super lucky. It stays.” Soo-jin gave a dramatic sigh over the comms. “Ten hells, aren’t you from Fallon? I thought only select Alliance carried that superstition.”
“We don’t want to attract Lokabrenna’s undead fleet,” Ma
rc said, dropping his voice into an accented monotone that didn’t quite hide the humor behind it. “They only see in red.”
“Yes, fear the colorblind.” Soo-jin snorted. “You do realize all that started as war propaganda, right? It’s been proven.”
“I prefer the counter-conspiracy conspiracy theory myself,” Marc informed her. “Which says that the propaganda conspiracy is just a cover-up for the real story.”
“Gods, you really are Cookie’s cousin.” Karin wasn’t sure how the woman did it, but she could hear the eye roll in her tone. “Anyway, let’s focus. Bringing markers up. Red for luck, Karin. Old Earth tradition.”
The markers appeared on her visor a second later. Karin raised an eyebrow at the exchange—Marc was definitely trying to lighten the mood. She recognized that much, at least—and sorted through the map to find a route.
“All right. Moving now.”
Without anyone with her, the walk proved both faster and twice as unnerving. She kept her steps light and quick, hugging walls like she’d seen people do in movies and checking around corners with probably more caution than warranted.
She only saw another person once—a man, wandering through the fused, pre-fabricated tables of an otherwise empty Mess hall—and he didn’t see her.
No shadows moved.
She reached the red dot on the map in ten minutes.
“Here,” she said. “Marc?”
“Almost. Needed a detour.”
They were on opposite sides of a long corridor that, by the map, linked into the auxiliary port control. Karin fingered the netlink in her hand. She’d already prepped it for the job—both the download network and the new emergency signal ready. She’d had to guess at the ship’s programming, but she was pretty sure it’d hold. If it didn’t, it’d only take her another couple of minutes to re-hash the message into its system.
“If anyone’s interested, the zombie people are attracted to light,” Marc commented a minute later.
She frowned. “What?”
An image flashed in her head, her project name—Eos, the dawnbringer. She shoved it back.
“I found some flares on my detour. They’re all gathered around one, staring at it.”
“How long’s the flare last?”
“A half-hour, I’d guess. I have a couple more with me.”
“Good. Let me take a look.”
She took a breath, straightened her spine, and hit the door panel.
It hissed open.
Three people looked up at her, pausing in their meander of the hall. As she did a quick scan of the route—no Shadows—a fourth one poked his head around the corner that led to the port.
The door hissed shut again.
“At least four,” she said. “Can’t see down the rest.”
“I’ll get them,” Marc said. “Hold tight.”
A muffled noise caught her attention through the panel—she thought she heard a scrape, and some kind of metal-on-metal rattle. Then, clearly, Marc banged his crowbar hard against the wall.
“Yoohoo!” he yelled. “Come on, party people!”
Karin raised an eyebrow.
At least one of them was having fun.
The metallic rapping sound kept on for some time. The entire ship probably heard it.
Well, hopefully not. She didn’t want the entire hoard—and Shadows—headed their way.
A few minutes later, her radio crackled.
“All right, it should be clear. I think I got them all,” he said. “There were six, by the way.”
“Six?” Soo-jin said. “I thought you led about fifteen around earlier. Geez, these people get around. You think they can unlock doors?”
“It looked like they could. There were prints on Ethan’s door, as if they’d been trying to use the keypad to get in.” Karin said. “I’ll be locking both once I’m through.”
She patted the sensor, stiffening as the door opened and the corridor came back into view.
Like Marc had said, it was empty. But she did not like taking chances.
She stepped inside, put her back briefly to the space to lock it, then turned around once the panel flashed red, surveying the space again.
A light flickered further up the hall, close to the junction that led to the port. The walls here were different than in other parts of the ship—they still bore the same drab, gray paint as the rest of the place, but their shape wasn’t as streamlined and straight as the halls outside. They were molded inward and cut off at strange angles, as if making room for pipes and vents at their tops and bottoms.
She stepped down the couple of stairs to the floor and veered left, keeping her view of the adjoining hall as broad as possible. Muggy air blew into her face as she drew closer, and she squinted as the smell of stale body odor came to her. She hadn’t gotten much more than a glimpse of the people who had been down here, but she’d assumed they were like the others—dark-eyed, slow-moving, despondent… and, the miraculous lack of urine and feces aside, either uninterested or incapable of basic cleanliness and grooming.
At least these people appeared to have kept all their clothes during the attack.
She felt immediately bad for having the thought. If not for her light, she would be in the same boat as them. And it’s not like she wore pants to bed every single night. Who did?
After making sure the second hall was clear, she darted up to the other door, keeping her steps as quick and silent as she could, and locked it.
She was safe. For now.
The netlink clicked open as she ducked around the corridor of the junction and found the auxiliary port, exactly where Ethan had said it’d be.
The display rippled to life under her touch. Not much different from the Nemina’s—a little older, perhaps, with some changes to the interface that weren’t hard to navigate. It only took her a minute or so to find the logs, along with the rest of the ship’s info. The netlink beeped when she pushed it into the terminal. A countdown timer appeared as it downloaded the data.
She skimmed it, checking its rate, then switched back to finding the broadcast sessions. If the ship followed basic protocol, as it had so far, then she should find the emergency broadcast under the second string of th—
A line of cold touched her neck, seeping through her spine. Every single hair on her body lifted up.
Behind her, light rippled.
She whirled.
The Shadow stood less than a meter from her, blocking the hallway. Its arm was outstretched, the tips of its ragged fingers inches from her face. She ducked. Light flared in her palms.
Too late. The Shadow lunged.
It caught her in the throat and slammed her into the console.
Alarms sounded from behind her as she slumped down, struggling against its grip. Pain knocked the breath from her. She gasped, kicked out, wrestled with its arm. Her fingers sank into its darkness where she dug them in.
Its grip stayed around her throat, closing off her windpipe. Another hand touched her head. Her hair shifted as four long fingers slid around the back, following the curve of her skull into the base of her neck.
Tears blurred her vision. She grasped harder, struggled to pull the light back into her palms.
A glimmer appeared like a thin, faint line of star shine.
The effect was immediate.
The Shadow snatched itself back, letting her go.
She dropped to the floor.
A second later, she had the crowbar in her hands.
The first swing hit empty air, falling far short of its target—but it kept the Shadow back long enough for her to regain her feet. She sucked in a breath, called the light to her, and blinked her vision clear.
The second swing was much more effective.
Even though she knew the Shadow had a physical presence, she was still surprised when the bar actually hit.
The impact jerked up her arm. She staggered.
The Shadow retracted from the hit. Then it lunged again, arms going for her head.
<
br /> She dropped to the floor as it crashed toward her, shoving the crowbar up between them. The Shadow made no sound as it hit the wall. She twisted around, kicked out, saw an opening and squirmed through it, hands and knees scrabbling to crawl away. The crowbar clunked and scraped against the floor as she struggled.
Soo-jin’s voice crackled over the radio as she scrambled to her feet, runners finding purchase on the floor.
“Karin? How’s it going with the download?”
A prickle of cold washed up her back as she ran for the junction and then for the left-hand door. She swung the bar out behind her. It got jerked from her hand.
A gasp sobbed through her throat. She pushed more speed in. The end was fast approaching, the sensor glowing red from her lock. Numb fingers reached up, ready to punch in the code, ready to burst through the door—
For what? So the Shadow could catch up to her in the next hall? So she could get impeded by all the zombie-people that the Shadows had already gotten? So she could lead it to Marc?
Karin faltered. Her mouth trembled.
No. She couldn’t do that.
She had to end this. Now.
Blinking past the emotion, she drew a ragged breath—half moan, half-yell—and spun. Light bubbled through her skin as she stumbled sideways, flooding the corridor like a strobe of lightning. A scream snarled from her throat as she pushed her will into the light.
The Shadow bowled her over. They both went down, tangled in strobes of black and white.
“Karin? You okay in there?”
Her vision blacked out. She felt its hands on her, sliding through her skin like a living ghost. The blur at its edges pressed into her head, pushing through her mind. A sob wracked through her as she squirmed. Tears pricked her eyes, streaking wet and cold down the sides of her eyes. Her arms shook, energy pulsing through them, shining milky white, burning like a star.
After a few seconds, she realized she could still see them.
The Shadow felt lighter, not as smothering.
She blinked.
Then she snarled.
A second scream tore through her mouth as she stabbed the light into its gut. She kept screaming as the Shadow began to burn, collapsing from the inside out like an old sun—except all of the light was hers and, instead of imploding and exploding, it drifted back into the air, shimmering like sunlight off the ocean.