The Eurynome Code: The Complete Series: A Space Opera Box Set

by K. Gorman

  “And in exchange, you’ll keep your mouth shut?” Marc confirmed, quirking an eyebrow at Senton.

  The comms tone went on. It seemed impatient, somehow, and drove along her nerves. In the window, she could see the Alliance patrol ship—a small, close-range vessel—approaching their orbit.

  “Yes,” Senton said. “I will.”

  “Good.” Marc leaned over Soo-jin, reaching for the comm control. “Now, everyone shut up.”

  He entered in the security override. The flashing notification vanished from the corner of the screen. A couple of keystrokes later, they were looking up into the washed-out face of an Alliance officer.

  He didn’t look happy. “What took you so long?”

  Marc ignored him. “I’ve got the ship reg and license, as well as the license info of my navigator, ready to ping.”

  The man waved a hand. “Send it, then prep your air bridge. We’re coming alongside you.”

  Karin quietly handed over her license card to Marc, who slipped it into the reader. They hadn’t asked for it yet, but it was a good thing to keep handy if they got picky.

  Though she had to admit, they didn’t look very picky at the moment. The dashcam might have washed out the officer’s face, but it wasn’t enough to hide the dark smudges under his eyelids—and one of his eyes looked like it had become severely bloodshot.

  The patrols must have been swigging through the Alliance’s supply of stimulants over the last week.

  A few minutes later, they all lined up in the junction as three men stepped on board. One had a scanner. They flashed a light in each of their eyes, swiped their registrations, and nodded.

  Ethan posed a small problem.

  “He’s not one of yours?” The officer in charge—Captain Finn Legan—glanced between Soo-jin and Karin, then let his gaze linger on Senton.

  “We rescued him from a ship. His parents… well, they’d been...”

  “Lost,” Soo-jin said. “That’s the official term, right?”

  The three men stiffened.

  “Did you bring them back?” Legan asked. He nodded to his other officers, and the two slipped past the group and down the hallway, weapons rising in front of them. A second later, they heard the sound of the first cabin door—Senton’s—opening.

  “No,” Marc said, watching them go. “We weren’t sure if it was… safe.”

  “Is this everyone you have on board?”

  “Yes.”

  “So my men will find no surprises?”

  “Only if they decide to search my underwear drawer,” Soo-jin said with a grin.

  Marc sighed. “No. No surprises. We just want to check in on our families. Word has been… lacking.”

  The two officers came back down the hall and ducked through the junction, headed toward the two storage holds. One gave Legan a quick nod before they vanished.

  “Comms have been tied. You know what to do if they’re Lost?”

  “The info dump said Bau was keeping them at Nuenbar,” Marc said. “I haven’t found anything in the database yet, though. He lives in one of the Igalina Skydorms, near Estbrook.”

  Bau was one of two main cities on the planet, and the one the military was based in. The officer would know what he was talking about.

  “That’s old. It’s Nuenbar, Filbrook, and Erling now. They’re trying to sort by district, but Igalina…” Legan shook his head. “A lot of people got taken out there, from what I heard—the dorms were a mess to clear out. I—” He stuttered to a halt, appeared to literally eat his words as his mouth worked, probably realizing what he’d just said. “Of course, maybe you’re one of the lucky ones. Lots of people fought off the Shadows in the first wave, and plenty are forming little strongholds and neighborhood watches. And you’ve managed to survive so far. If your people are anything like you…”

  Marc waved him to stop. “It’s all right, officer. You don’t have to candy coat it with us—we prefer it straight, anyhow.” His lips formed a tight smile. “I served, once upon a time.”

  “Did you?” Legan appeared relieved. “Oh, that’s good. We need everyone we can get. Who with?”

  “A small unit on one of the border moons,” Marc said smoothly. “Patrol, mostly. It was a long time ago.”

  Karin slid her attention over, watching the officer. Marc was being intentionally vague about his military service. She doubted an Alliance officer would take kindly to finding out his Fallon origins.

  And, with his next words, Legan proved her right.

  “Yes, I imagine so. And what is this, a Fallonian ship?” Legan glanced around at the Nemina’s corridor. “Have to say, that reg woke me up a bit when it appeared on the screen.”

  Marc shrugged. “They had a big fleet decommissioning. I happened to be in the area at the time.”

  “Fire sale.” Legan shot Marc a toothy grin. “Bet the elitest bastards janked the price on you.”

  The sound of marching boots came back up the corridor, and Legan’s head jerked their way—Marc looked relieved at the interruption. Given the anti-Fallon sentiment she’d seen while living in Alliance territory, she doubted that conversation would have gone as well had it continued into the details of Marc’s service. Legan acknowledged the private’s nod before he’d even had a chance to get it in, already moving toward the airlock. “All clear, boys? Good. Let’s go. Another minute, another ship.”

  The men marched right by without a word. If they’d had any opinions about their commanding officer’s change of mood, the obvious lack of sleep on their faces did well to stifle it.

  Legan followed them with a tip of his head. “Well, good luck.”

  Soo-jin waved them off. “You, as well.”

  Then, they were gone.

  The door on the other side of the air bridge shut behind them.

  In the sudden silence, Marc quirked an eyebrow. Then he leaned forward and slapped the door sensors. The inner door hissed. A second later, they heard the clang of the outer door lock tight.

  “He must have had a day,” Soo-jin said. “He didn’t even notice the Fallon service tatt on your arm.”

  “Nor the fact that my citizenship is plainly viewable in both the ship license and registration—and in my ident card, which he didn’t check.”

  “Reading comprehension is a lost art,” Soo-jin commented.

  “Indeed.” Marc shook his head. “Too bad he didn’t stay longer. I could have played that conversation more. Would have been nice to get more intel on what’s happening below. You can only get so much from feeds.”

  A mechanical whir sounded beyond the door, only to be muted by a quick hiss of air as the vacuum took the air bridge. Vibration rumbled underfoot as the bridge retracted back into the hull. The light at the side of the door switched to blue once it had finished.

  The main computer in the bridge chimed.

  Marc looked up. “He’s quick on the permission ticket, too. Come on. Let’s get out of here.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  The city of Bau glimmered in the viewscreen, rich, lush, and put in a golden haze by the light fog and the sunset. The Nemina came in on what Karin termed the ‘postcard approach’ to the city. Thick forest flashed by underneath, the individual trees growing larger and more distinct as they sped down through atmo and hugged the lower altitudes. With the sea behind it, glittering in the sun, Bau’s waterfront was thrown into a half-silhouette. It wasn’t large—not by Core standards, at least—but it was a planet capital. Quite a lot of money had been spent to ensure it looked the part. Air drag rocked them around, making the view in front of them shift as she adjusted course.

  The tones of several comm links, hers included, rang in the bridge, slightly out of sync.

  After a few minutes, Soo-jin threw her netlink down in disgust. “Satellites are probably tied. Same with the towers, I’d expect. Too much traffic.”

  “A landline might fix that,” Karin said. “Should be less traffic, anyway.”

  “Unless the entire city’s de
cided to throw a Moon Sailor marathon, then yes.” Soo-jin curled her lip and flexed her fingers in frustration. “Too bad we’re not grounded.”

  The parking grid, at least, was not affected. As Karin approached, the city’s automated system pinged back her request and found her a spot in Sulsagana, the city’s south district. Marc, hearing the notification, leaned in.

  “Good thing they finished the Sky Line last year. Easy way to the center.” He straightened and looked down at his netlink, which was still ringing. After a few seconds, he sighed and cut the call. “Guess we’re doing this the old-fashioned way. Soo, do you mind taking Ethan into Central? Karin and I are headed to East Igalina, and I know you—”

  “Yeah, yeah.” Soo-jin waved a hand. “I wanted to check in with a few people in Ninisinna, anyway, before I headed up. It’ll probably take a few hours to hike up to Songbird, but something tells me he won’t mind the trip.”

  She lifted a questioning eyebrow and directed her gaze across the room.

  Ethan, leaning against the far wall, gave her a small nod. “I don’t mind.”

  “I don’t think any of us actually mind getting off this boat.” Marc reached over and patted the dashboard in front of the co-pilot’s chair he was leaning against. “No offense, girl, but you’re small.”

  “She doesn’t mind, Captain,” Soo-jin said. “She’s a machine.”

  “Shh. Don’t rain on my anthropomorphism. We’ve been through a lot, she and I.”

  “You bought her two years ago, and she spent the first one in land dock being fed inferior machinery.”

  “I clinked a lot of beers off her port in that time, I’ll have you know.”

  The bridge went dead silent. For the first time, Karin took her eyes off the front screen and slanted them to the side, where she could just barely make out Marc’s form beside her.

  “Hell,” Marc said. “I’m not going to live that quote down, am I?”

  “Marc Jones, Sol Year 2706.” Soo-jin giggled. “Must have been real lonely, just the two of you. Did you—”

  “Shut up,” he said. “Karin, can you make this thing go any faster?”

  “Thing?” Soo-jin barked a laugh. “What happened to your anthropomorphous vision? Burst your own bubble, did you? Can’t keep it up—”

  “Shut up. I’m going to check something important that I’m sure needs my attention—”

  “—Not Nemina’s port, by any chance?” Soo-jin giggled.

  “—I’ll see you all when the laughter’s calmed down.”

  Karin watched him go, then settled back into her seat. She returned her gaze out the window, putting a slight course correction in as they veered too far right. Trees and forest sped beneath and to the sides, rising up the low slopes of the mountains that prickled up from the map.

  Ahead of them, the city, clouded by a slight haze, had a dusky tint to it. As it grew closer, her worries returned.

  They churned in her stomach like old, heavy lead.

  The train that picked them up was empty, as were the next two she and Marc transferred to, all part of a mixed network of maglev and cheaper rail systems that looped both over and under the city’s neighborhoods. As she looked out the windows and searched the sky, little threads of worry rose through her gut like snakes.

  The city looked dead.

  Marc stood beside her, swaying as the train rocked back and forth on its track. Sunlight flinched and flickered across him, lighting the rich tone in his skin far better than any of the shipboard bulbs could. He ignored her, one hand clutched loosely to the train’s hanging grab straps, the other cradling his netlink.

  Its tone blooped through the empty car, the only sound except for the occasional clunk and shriek of the wheels.

  She wasn’t sure why he was here—well, she was. They both needed this train to get into Eastside—but, by the comments he’d made, it had become clear that he intended to accompany her.

  Why? She glanced to the blaster at his side. To protect her? Make sure she didn’t get taken by Shadows?

  Or to keep her from running away?

  She shook her head, rubbing at her eyes. She was being paranoid—not for the first, nor the last. Marc wouldn’t do that. And a part of her was glad for the company. Who wouldn’t be, given what the Shadows could do?

  But the rest of her wanted to circle her wagons, keep to herself, and find her sister.

  Nomiki would know what to do. She always did. Hell, even dream-Nomiki had seemed to know more about the Shadows than Karin did.

  She almost rolled her eyes at the thought. Dream Nomiki didn’t exist. Dreams were just flights of the brain’s fancy. Half stress and information processing, half an attempt to communicate something in the subconscious that the waking part of her brain either couldn’t or didn’t process.

  If dream-Nomiki seemed to know more about the Shadows, it was only because dream-Karin thought she did.

  But, if dreams really were just random fantastic images, then why did everyone have the same dream that night? Even Hopper, Senton, and Ethan, who’d had no connection with Karin and, probably, had never even been in the same system as those stone ruins?

  She blew out a noisy breath and pulled her head back, eyes wandering across the advertisements.

  Maybe Nomiki did know something.

  Marc lifted his head at the noise. “You okay?”

  “About as okay as I can be, I guess.” She returned her head to a more normal position and gave his netlink a glance. The tone still blooped through the car. He’d renewed the call a few minutes ago. “Still no luck?”

  “I think Soo-jin might be right about the comms. I’m not even getting his voicemail.” He sighed, shook his head, and then pocketed the netlink. The tone cut off abruptly. “We’re getting off at Estbrook, right?”

  That ‘we’ thing again. She hesitated, then gave him a quick nod. “You don’t mind going for Nomiki first?”

  “No. Plus it’ll be good for you to have a second, in case she’s Lost.” He gave her a grim smile. “Soo-jin put up a bit of a fight while you were... extracting it.”

  She swallowed hard. Nomiki was, by and far, no pushover. If she were one of the Lost, they could have an even bigger fight on their hands—and if anyone proved an anomaly to the Lost’s normal docility, it would be her.

  She glanced down toward his blaster. “That has a stun setting, right?”

  His eyebrows twitched in surprise, then frowned. “Yes—why? Do you think we’ll need it?”

  She hesitated. “Nomiki is… special. Better to stun her first and ask questions after.”

  “Is she… like you?”

  “Yes and no.” Her gaze swung up as she hesitated again, the resistance holding her tongue for a few seconds. “She’s different.”

  “No light?”

  “No. Definitely not.”

  That had been her gift. Nomiki’s talents had lain in a distinctly different direction. Where Karin had been modeled after a dawn goddess, Nomiki had been designed from the war pantheon.

  She shivered, memories resurfacing in her mind. Her sister’s talents had played a large part in their escape. Where Karin had hesitated, Nomiki had left hallways of fresh bodies in her wake.

  That was also why she thought Nomiki was still alive and un-Lost.

  Except that her sister lived alone. If they’d caught her unaware, asleep, as they’d caught the rest of humanity…

  “Karin?” Marc’s attention hadn’t left her. Like with his skin, the sunset tinted his eyes a brighter shade, bringing out the color and definition in his irises. “Is there something I need to know?”

  She shook her head. She’d spent enough time worrying about that over the past week. Now was not the time to let her worries reach a crescendo. “It’s better to just stun her first, just in case. She’s… Well, her special power is violence.”

  Several seconds passed in silence. Marc watched her, an incredulous expression spreading across his face as he processed. His eyebrows arched toward
her. “And you were planning to see her alone?”

  She gave him a shrug as the train rounded a smooth corner, pulling her grip tight against the strap and shifting the light across the car. “Her eyes are light green, so it’ll be easy to notice if they’ve changed. I thought I could just hit her from across the room.”

  “What if she was at the door?”

  “Then… I’d run?” She flashed him a sheepish grin.

  He rolled his eyes, muttering something under his breath as looked back out the windows. “Good thing I’m coming along, then.”

  Ten minutes later, they stepped off the station at Estbrook and out into the sun.

  The place was dead quiet.

  It had never been a hopping part of the city to begin with. Estbrook was residential, with the shops and streets aligned as such. Old, single-family homes crammed against each other on the streets closest to the station, their concrete façades weathered from the mid-tropic climate. Bau wasn’t exactly hot—they’d landed in its winter cycle, after all—but neither was it cold. Karin’s light jacket, and a thin pair of stretch-jeans, were all she needed to keep the windchill out.

  Still, she shivered.

  Last time, there’d been activity—a bus transport or two, the occasional cab, neighbors chatting along fence lines, people walking to and fro.

  It should not be this empty.

  A ground transport lot stretched out between the station entrance and the houses, overshadowed by the station and the few pedestrian walkways jutting away toward the massive Skydorms that sat several blocks out to the left. Only a few vehicles sat in the lot—and, by the way most of them were scattered across the empty area, away from the station entrance, she suspected they’d been there a while.

  Probably night-shifters on their way in. The lot would have been full at that time. And then, they hadn’t come back.

  Turned into Lost, most likely.

  Her boots ground into the old concrete as she paused, surveying the area.

  Marc nudged her shoulder. “Look—the doors. What’s on them?”

  She followed his pointing finger back to the houses. They were low buildings, left over from city expansion. Probably some of the second-wave pensioners living off the checks they’d earned in the Border Wars, given the buildings’ apparent age. Chain-link fences peeled and warped around a couple of front yards, hemming in tiny patches of yellowing grass. A newer fence stood at the end of the block, straight and still shining with a dull, brushed gleam. A white sign gleamed next to its gate, its letters indistinct, but her jaw tensed as she spotted the dog house beside it.