by K. Gorman
It wasn’t that the Nemina never took on extra passengers. She did, and it had been part of the job manifest that Marc had sent to her.
It had just been quite a while.
“Any idea what he was doing around my ship?” Marc asked.
Senton shook his head. “Nope. How’s your security?”
Marc flashed him a tight-lipped smile. “Military grade.”
A tone beeped from the bridge comms. Marc retracted his arm and pushed himself up from the table. “Excuse me.”
Soo-jin followed him into the corridor.
Suddenly, Karin found herself alone with their new passenger.
The silence ticked between them.
“So… you’re the pilot?” Senton asked after a minute.
“Technically, we can all pilot. I’m the only fully-licensed navigator.”
“Really? That’s cool.” He took another spoonful of his ration mix, a frown mingling into his expression as he chewed. He swallowed, then gestured with the spoon in the air. “That’s odd, isn’t it? That you’re all pilots?”
“More a lucky coincidence,” she explained. “I haven’t asked much about it, but I think Marc got basic flight training in the military, and Soo-jin grew up with it. I’m really only here as an extra hand and a licensed math machine.”
“You can go off-route, right?”
“Yep.”
“A good skill for this ship to have,” he said. “I can’t imagine much scrounging comes close to sanctioned routes.”
“It doesn’t. Our last job before this was out beyond Neston.”
“Pretty far,” he said.
She nodded.
Technically, it wasn’t. There was still the belt, and a few stations beyond where the Independents had their few, scattered ports.
But in terms of Alliance-operated space?
Yeah, it was getting on the fringe.
Another silence stretched out between them. She glanced around the room, then tapped a couple of idle fingers against the tabletop—a movement she halted with a wince.
Apparently, the nano pain blockers weren’t quite as full-reaching as the stuff they’d found in the station’s Medkit.
A quiet set of footsteps tapped close to the hallway entrance. A moment later, Ethan poked his head around the door. His gaze snapped to her, then hesitated, giving Senton a full study.
“Can we talk?” he said, looking back at her. “Alone?”
Shit, she thought, catching the meaningful look he sent her. The memory of his outburst in the hallway came back to her.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
She narrowed her eyes at him. When she spoke, her voice came out sharp. “Yes, why don’t we?”
She pushed herself back from the table with another wince and eased herself up, limping the first few steps. The arm wasn’t the only part of her that hurt, and some of the muscles she’d overused in the fight were making their presence known. She walked stiffly around the table, gave a brief nod to Senton, then ushered Ethan into their cabin.
The door hissed closed behind him.
“What?” she said.
Ethan whirled. “You could save people.”
She frowned. “You don’t know that.”
“You could try,” he said. “You could at least try.”
She almost crossed her arms over her chest, but a twinge of pain stopped that action. She took a steadying breath. “No, I can’t.”
“Why not? People are dying. You almost died.” He was working himself up, nearly shouting, but fortunately, getting too far ahead of his breath to raise much volume.
Still, she gave the door a quick glance.
“I’m fine. Just a broken arm. Everyone is fine.”
“No, they aren’t. My dad isn’t fine. He’s like the rest of them—black-eyed freaks!” He choked a sob. “And that lady earlier—she isn’t fine. None of them are fine.”
She considered him for a long moment. He was more upset than she’d thought—and, now that she was thinking about it, he had probably been upset for a long time. He’d tried to hide it. He made his shaking hands into tense fists at his side, pushed his fear and panic into anger. The muscles in his jaw and neck worked, moving under his skin.
She went down on one knee, coming to his level. “You okay?”
To her surprise, tears fell from his eyes. He sniffed, eyes watery, and his anger vanished into them like smoke. When he met her stare, his whole body shaking, his voice barely choked past the fear and guilt in his eyes.
“I’m sorry, Karin,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
At first, she frowned, searching his face. What had just happened? He’d been yelling at her. Had he been older, she’d have expected him to have been cussing her out. But now—
Her eyes widened. Then her whole body went rigid.
“What have you done?”
He said nothing. His mouth closed, jaw locking into place.
She grabbed his shoulder. “What. Have. You. Done?”
Slowly, his head turned. He looked at the netlink she’d left sitting at the end of her bed earlier.
Karin swore, then lunged for it so fast that her injured arm smacked into his shoulder as she bumped by. She bit back a yelp, slowing for a second as the pain smashed through her, and then grabbed the netlink from the covers.
Her hand shook. Sick fear trembled through her like the plucked string of a violin. She pulled up the screen and found her messaging program with a fresh message on top—a reply to something she had not sent.
As she read through the words, she began to shake harder.
Someone pounded on the door. “Karin?”
Soo-jin. She sucked in a breath and squared her jaw. “What?”
“That’s what we want to fucking know. Get out here!”
Clio. She shot a look to Ethan, who flinched, then walked over and smacked the control for the door.
Soo-jin did not look happy. “Why the hell does Hopper think you can heal his wife?”
Easy now, easy now. You can do this.
She twisted her lip. “Why don’t you ask Ethan?”
“What?” Soo-jin blocked her as she tried to leave. “Why does Ethan think you can heal Hopper’s wife?”
“I don’t know. I just saw the message myself. He sent it through my client.”
Soo-jin looked past Karin to Ethan. “Well? What the fuck?”
Ethan cowered back, gaze flinching downward. Then he balled his fists and raised his head. “Because she can. I’ve seen it! She killed a Shadow!”
“We’ve all killed Shadows,” Soo-jin said. “And I don’t think my throwing blade will cure Hopper’s wife. Not the kind of cure he’s wanting, anyway.” She rolled her eyes, then stepped away from the door and jerked her head toward the bridge. “Come on. Let’s see if we can turn this around.”
Hopper’s face took up most of the main screen. The paleness of his skin reflected white off the surface of the dashboard and the wall behind where Marc sat in the pilot’s seat. Karin’s stomach sank as she noticed the background of the video. “Is he outside our door?”
“Yep, and he brought a lot of uglies with him.” Soo-jin glanced back to where Ethan crept behind them in the hall. “See what you’ve done, kid?”
He said nothing, but his eyes had a sullen look that burned with determination.
Karin frowned, replaying their conversation. “This is about your dad, isn’t it?”
His head snapped up to her. By the tightness of his jaw, she had guessed right.
That explained it, at least. He had a dog in the race, and he couldn’t afford to lose.
Her teeth ground together. They should have never taken him into the station with them. He should have never seen those people.
Soo-jin looked between them. “What is about his dad?”
Karin swallowed. “I think he’s upset. His dad’s back on the Ozark. He thinks I can heal him somehow.”
“Where would he get that idea?”
“How should I
know?” She threw one hand up in the air—avoiding the injured one—and gave Soo-jin what she hoped was an exasperated look. “Maybe the kid had a weird dream.”
“Uh huh.” Soo-jin frowned. “I guess that would explain his outburst earlier. Still fucking weird.”
Karin looked over. Guess Soo-jin’s avoidance of swears around children was only relative to her anger level.
Marc’s voice rumbled over from the bridge. “Can you please get over here? I think Hopper’s just about tired of our mute.”
Soo-jin pushed Ethan to the front. “This one has some explaining to do.”
“Whatever it is, do it quick. I think he’s about to lock us down.”
Soo-jin prodded Ethan’s shoulder. “Come on, kid. Tell the angry man that you’re sorry for selling him bullshit.”
“No,” he said.
“What?” She bore down on him, fingers digging into his shoulder. “You realize that he won’t let us leave because of you, right?”
“No!” Ethan jerked forward, pointing at Karin as he danced out of Soo-jin’s grip. “She can shoot fucking light from her fingers! I saw it! I’m not lying!”
The bridge went silent. On Ethan’s other side, Marc raised an eyebrow at the outburst. By his face, she could tell that he was still playing catch-up with the situation.
“Light?” He glanced to Karin. “What do you mean, light?”
“It hit the Shadow and made it disappear.”
“What?” Marc said. “No, I shot it with my blaster. That’s the light you saw.”
“Not that Shadow. Another one. Back on the Ozark.”
Marc’s frown deepened. He glanced to Karin. “You met another Shadow on the Ozark?”
“No,” she said, voice calm and composed. “We did not.”
Ethan ground his teeth. The light from the screen cast a pale glow on his skin, but she still saw it deepen in color.
An alarm rose up from the computer. They all looked over to see the red warning message pop up in the corner of the screen. They were locked to the station.
Marc reached over and flicked the alert off. “Looks like Hopper got tired of waiting.”
“We need to turn this situation around right now,” Soo-jin said. “We do not want to be in his pissing range.”
“I don’t want to be in anyone’s pissing range, but I still seem to be getting pissed on.” Marc sighed and tapped his fingers on the edge of the dashboard for a few seconds, studying Hopper’s much angrier face on the display.
Then he straightened. “Well, let’s see what he has to say.”
The video unmuted.
“I bet that got your fucking attention,” Hopper said. “I want some fucking answers. What is this?”
“Hopper, please, there are children around,” Marc said.
Miraculously, that seemed to give him pause.
“Look, I’m sorry for this, but I need answers. That message hit a sore spot. This is my wife we’re talking about.”
“I understand. Unfortunately, the answers won’t be pleasant.” Marc gestured behind him. “You remember Ethan?”
On the screen, Hopper’s jaw worked. “Yes.”
“It seems he’s become a bit deluded. I don’t know if his trauma is mixing his memories, or if he had a realistic dream, but he seems to think—”
“It wasn’t a dream!” Ethan pointed at Karin. “She can shoot light from her hands! She can heal people!”
In her peripheral vision, Karin saw Soo-jin look over to her again. She kept her focus on the screen, and on Marc.
Marc was exchanging a look with the dashboard camera.
“Like I said,” he continued. “I’m not sure what’s going on with him, but that’s who sent the message.”
On the screen, Hopper’s jaw worked again. His brows were furrowed once more—a different kind of frown than before—and a ripple went through his forehead. He turned his gaze to the side, presumably where his feed was showing Ethan’s position, and gave a small uptick with his chin. “Tell me about the light.”
Marc stiffened, suddenly worried. “You’re not serious? Clearly, she can’t shoot light from her fingers.”
“I’ve been fighting Shadow people for five days,” Hopper said. “My mind has become strangely open to things that clearly can’t be. Tell me about the light.”
Ethan, seeming suddenly unsure, looked between the people in the room. Then he took a hesitant step toward the camera, cautious of his proximity to Marc.
“It came out of her fingers,” he said. “Out of her entire arm. Kind of like glowing water—but then she made it attack the Shadow and it made it go back.”
“And then she killed the Shade—the Shadow—with it?” Hopper asked. “That’s what your message said.”
“Well… yeah.” Ethan nodded. “Eventually.”
“And you’re sure you saw it? It wasn’t a dream?”
Ethan stiffened. “We were still on the Ozark when it happened. No way I was asleep.”
“He spent days on the Ozark, no help. I’m not sure his memories—”
“Shut it. I don’t care. If there’s even a hair’s chance that she can help Sharon, I will go to Hell and back to ensure she gets that chance. You understand.”
Marc’s face was grim. “I see you’ve brought her with you.”
The video shifted, and Karin saw her in the background, milling between two of Hopper’s goons.
“I thought to be efficient.”
“And if Karin can’t shoot light from her fingers—which, by the way, I have never heard even a whisper of her doing before—what then? You’ll let us go? When does this faith healing test end?”
Hopper stuck out his chin. “It ends when I say it ends.”
Marc stared at the screen for several long seconds, the bridge dead quiet except for the slight, static hum of the comms connection.
Then, with a heavy sigh, he reached forward to flick a switch on the dashboard.
“No,” he said. “I don’t think it does.”
Chapter Seventeen
A clunk sounded deep in the ship. Through the floor, they heard something whir—like landing gear. Except, Karin frowned as she looked down, it’s in the wrong place.
Her gaze darted back to the dashboard as a new interface opened in one panel. Her eyes widened as she recognized the patterns.
The Nemina had a weapons system?
Her stomach did a small flip. She’d known the ship was an old military vessel, but Marc had been adamant about all its old military components being stripped bare—and besides, the ship was a scout class. And small.
Not something she thought would have ever been equipped with weapons.
On the screen, confusion took over Hopper’s face. By the matching looks on the people behind him—except for Sharon—they had all either seen or felt the movement through the hatch that connected to the Nemina.
“Are you trying to leave?” he said, his confusion growing—clearly, they had felt the clunk, too, through the station’s metal. “The hold will rip your door off if you try.” A beep sounded from his netlink, heard clearly through their audio. He glanced at the message and his eyes went wide. “What the fuck?”
“That’s a C-Class Fallon laser cannon that I’ve just prepped. It’ll take me some time, but I think I can melt enough of your station to break myself free. We can fly a good distance away and remove the rest, if needed.” Marc leaned forward. “I can either give you a head start to get you and your men to a safe, air-tight spot away from the target, or you can release the lockdown you’ve put on my ship.”
Hopper narrowed his eyes. “All she has to do is come out and try.” Emotion clogged his throat, his words raw with pain. “It won’t do her any harm to try!”
“Try until what?” Marc retorted. “Until you decide when she’s finished trying? Until after you motivate her?” Marc shook his head. “I’m not going to have one of my crewmates tortured into trying witchcraft that she isn’t capable of. Either let us go, or get a
large new hole blown into your station.”
Hopper didn’t say a word. His nose flared in anger as he stared into the camera, silent. Behind him, a few of his men were glancing to one another. Sharon watched it all, impassive. For a second, she turned her face to the camera, and it looked as though her black eyes were staring straight at Karin.
Then Hopper turned away and nodded at one of his men.
A lighter tone beeped through the Nemina’s bridge. The lockdown alert vanished from the screen, replaced by a green-colored notification of exit permission.
A clunk sounded. The ship started to leave.
“You may leave,” Hopper said. “I wouldn’t come back.”
Marc pulled the controls back out of the deck and eased them away. Through the front windows, the Nemina dipped below the dock, then fishtailed its nose around.
“Not planning to.” Marc reached forward to engage the auxiliary thrusters, and they began to move away. “Goodbye and good luck.”
He cut the transmission.
Everyone on the bridge watched more and more of the station come into view as they moved back. Marc kept the craft pointed toward it the whole time, his hands steady on the controls.
“Well, this is going to be an awkward twenty minute warm-up,” Soo-jin said. “You do realize that we’ve just blacklisted ourselves, right?”
Marc met her eyes, his expression still grim. “Would you have preferred to stay?”
She snorted. “Not one bit. Just saying, is all. He’ll call other stations, warn them ahead of time. That gun of yours won’t be a secret for long.”
“It’s fully licensed, if that’s what you’re worried about. Just very hard to detect.”
“No shit. I didn’t know about it, and I’m the damn engineer.” She paused. “I guess this explains the power diversion I found a couple months ago.”
A soft shuffle drew their attention to the door. Senton poked his head onto the bridge and looked around. “I take it we’re leaving early?”
“Yes. And we won’t be stopping until we hit Enlil. I hope you have everything you need?”
“I do,” he said a little dryly. “Did I hear something about witchcraft?”
The room went quiet again.
A half-grimace froze on Marc’s face, baring his teeth. “Ethan here has an active imagination.”