by K. Gorman
“Fallon is standing up just fine to the Alliance. All they wanted was jurisdiction over their territory, which they have.”
“Yeah, but if they tried to take anything else, infringe on Alliance too much…”
“But they don’t care about that. And it’s more equal than you think.”
“Whatever, cuz. You guys always lose in the system tactics rpg.”
“And just where do you think that game was made?”
“Okay, okay, guys, enough. We get it.” Soo-jin raised a hand and pushed it down through the air in a vacillating motion. “Let’s just keep an eye on this green blob that may or may not be a ship, see if it changes, and move on with our day?”
“Agreed. Besides, Karin’s got something to put our minds to.” Marc swung his seat around and lifted an eyebrow toward her. “Karin?”
All eyes turned toward her expectantly. She sighed and held up the book.
“It falls right in line with secretive cultists, actually…” She held up the book for them to see. “Nomiki had this under her bed. I guess she’s been doing extra digging on where we’re from.”
“Wait. Where are you from?” Cookie sat up straighter in his chair. “I thought you were Belenar, but Soo said you came through the gate?”
“I’m from Earth. The short story is that Nomiki and I were test tube experiment babies created in a lab somewhere near the Mediterranean, then fed a bunch of drugs, treatments, and likely a lot of brainwashing in our childhood before we escaped.” She held up the notebook. “The long story is somewhere in here.”
Soo-jin lifted her eyebrows. “Damn. Now that’s a comic book origin story if I ever heard it.”
“There’s more.” She paused. “You know those ruins we all see in our dreams?”
“Yeah?”
“They’re right up the hill from the compound I was raised in.”
Soo-jin’s eyes didn’t widen, but Karin could tell when the woman’s face went dead serious. It was like a mask slid over, putting one layer between her and the outside world. One more layer between them. “They’re real?”
“There are pictures of them in here.”
“And you didn’t tell us?”
Karin’s jaw tensed, and a hot flash of shame rolled through her chest, but she straightened her back. “No.”
Soo-jin’s nose wrinkled. But Marc beat her to the punch.
“If the ruins are real, then that means Karin’s past is connected to whatever is happening to cause these Shadows. And that means that, if we can figure it out, we will be one step closer to figuring them out.” He paused. “I don’t know about you, but that’s kind of a priority for me.”
Soo-jin narrowed her eyes. “I did not sign up to save the system.”
“No, but Chariday won’t be having many auctions if its patrons are all Lost.”
“Fine. Whatever. I’ve got nothing better to do.” She threw her hands up and walked away. “Sure would have been nice to have known this shit before we’d left Enlil’s access networks.”
“Yeah, well, next time you want to lay out your traumatic childhood on the deck for everyone to poke through, be my damn guest.” Karin blew out a breath, then flopped the book on the dashboard before turning for the hallway. “I’ll grab a table. Might as well have a proper set-up in here.”
Chapter Ten
Rain drizzled outside in a steady, subdued haze, casting the dormant classroom in muted, grayish light that filtered against the white upper walls and turned the tables, desks, and shelves into watery, shadowy versions of themselves. Half the blinds had been drawn in the room, bisecting it front to back. It wasn’t precisely dark in the back, but crowded. Last semester’s science projects stood on display at the back-most counter—Karin’s project, on the anatomy of volcanoes, was a scream of orange. She’d spent all night cutting out the letters—and their teacher had piled a year’s worth of looseleaf projects, homework, and tests on the surrounding tables for them to go through.
She and Nomiki sat on top of one of the science counters toward the front. Brennan, the only other student of their grade in the compound, stood at the end of the table, staring up at the taxidermied hawk that hung from a wire on the ceiling above him. With its two-meter wingspan, large, poised talons, and fierce eyes, he looked small under it.
“Do it again.”
Nomiki, her shoes on the floor and her bare toes spread on the counter, leaned back on the heels of her hands and flashed Brennan a broad grin. She had darker-toned skin than Karin, with more richness and vitality. It made her look stronger, more vibrant. The rainlight that washed out the rest of the room passed over her with minimal effect. Sitting together like this made Karin aware of just how different they were.
Nomiki’s dark eyes glittered as she tilted her shoulders toward him. “Come on, Nanna, do it.”
Brennan frowned as he looked up at the hawk. “Don’t call me that.”
A thrill went through her, and her skin pricked as she glanced back to the hawk. Brennan had just received his gift.
It wasn’t particularly… nice.
“Are we really supposed to be here?” She looked nervously to the door. “I thought—”
“It’s a half day, and Prof Berkett called lunch an hour ago. Everyone’s down in the basement.” Nomiki rolled her eyes. “They don’t care what we do. So long as we don’t skip our treatments.”
She turned her attention back to him, and her expression drew together, more serious this time. “Come on, Brennan. You get better with practice. Trust me.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know. But I’m different from you guys. Give me a second.”
He lifted his hands, and the tattoo on his wrist became visible. Jet black against his skin, it caught Karin’s eye. Her hand went to her own wrist, massaging an imagined ache that crept up through her skin. Though the same age as them, he’d come to the company in a different way. The number was larger than theirs, part of a newer project.
As he squinted up at the hawk and his expression went serious, a quiet took the classroom. Karin and Nomiki held still, watching, neither interrupting. In her peripheral vision, she saw her sister’s eyes widen. A low kind of energy shifted into the atmosphere, bringing a warmth that pricked the rain-damp air around them.
They held their breath, listening, watching, their attention fixated on the hawk.
It drifted, part of it pulled into a slow, latent spin on its wire by the room’s natural air currents. Its glass eyes reflected the outside cloudscape in a subtle gleam.
Brennan let out a slow breath, the air hissing between his teeth. The sound was loud in the quiet room, and, on the tail end of that hiss, something shifted into the room. Like a puzzle piece clipping in to complete a picture.
They stared at the hawk, not quite breathing. It tilted on its wire the same as before, but there was something different about it.
As they watched, it began to move.
She woke with a jolt. Shadows molded the room’s surfaces in a depth of shades, and, for a second, the shift between dream and reality made the juxtaposition of her familiar room incongruous against the memory of the classroom, as if she were in two places at once. Sweat pricked her skin as she scanned through it, the momentary panic reluctant to fade. She forced her breath to become slow and shallow, quiet, the entirety of her body going rigid.
“Bad dream?”
Ethan’s voice jerked her attention to the door. The simple act threw everything back into place, and she felt herself relax.
The brain was a complicated instrument, and hers had been messed with. Given her childhood, it was incredible she didn’t have more nightmares.
Aware of his attention on her, and the deepening furrow of concern on his small brow, she forced her face to soften. “You could say that.”
His soft hair held its usual muss, and the ends caught the hallway light in a kind of relief. He sat on the inside of the door in the same camp chair she’d been using a week ago, a glowing netlink in his hands and one
half of the headphone attachment going to a single ear. In contrast to the harsh light from the hallway, the netlink put a thin, mercurial glow on his face. His expression had softened with hers, but his round eyes still held concern.
She stifled a yawn and pushed herself up onto her elbows. A glance at the clock showed it was almost five o’clock, system time. Six hours of sleep, then.
Not terrible, considering everything, but a dry, scratchy feeling pushed at the insides of her eyeballs, and she had to squint to keep them open.
“We’re close to Caishen,” Ethan said.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Then it’s only five days before we reach the Ozark.” She pushed herself up farther, ignoring the groan of the mattress beneath her, and rubbed some of the bleariness out of her eyes. “You’ll be able to go home soon. See your dad.”
This time, Ethan went silent. When she looked over, the muscles in his cheek had gone tense.
Inwardly, she kicked herself. He was just a kid. Emotions were complicated, and the Ozark had a whole mixed bag of them. He’d been holed up in a cabin for three days when she’d found him, and his stepdad…
Well, at least he hadn’t seen him become Lost.
She shifted her gaze to the netlink. “What’s that? Starcats?”
One of Azcorp’s preferred cartoon shows, she’d seen Ethan marathoning it ever since he’d discovered they could download it
He nodded. “I’m on the last season.”
A niggling sensation tickled the back of her mind, and she frowned. “How many are there? Isn’t it the daily show?”
“Seventeen. But some of them aren’t as good. I watch them, anyway.”
Huh. Guess they weren’t the only ones who had been conducting research. But, considering how excited he had been to get the Starcats T-shirt during their last run at Caishen…
“Do you want to watch some with me? I know grown-ups don’t really like this sort of thing…” He trailed off, his chin tilting up toward her.
She blinked at him for a few seconds, her brain taking more than a few seconds to process it. Then she pushed herself up and fiddled with the covers around her. “Yeah, sure, why not? Not sure if I want to get out of bed, though.”
She eyed the other bunk, assessing its comfort level, but the warmth of the blankets and the softness of her pillow won out. “Wanna scoot that chair over here?”
“Can I… Can I come in with you?”
“You mean, like to cuddle?” she asked, frowning.
“Umm. Yes?” He ducked his head after the request, suddenly shy, and brought the netlink closer to his chest. “I mean, Marc and Soo-jin, they probably… And Cookie… Well, I used to cuddle with my dad a lot. Mom, too, before she…”
His mom had died last year, so he’d told her. An incident with one of the engines she’d been working on, and complications in the hospital.
Karin straightened, then flicked the blanket out of the way and shuffled back on the bed. “All right. I understand. Come on in.”
His chair creaked softly as he stood, and his bare feet made a small, barely audible pitter-patter on the metal floor. After some hesitation, he crawled into bed with her, propping the netlink on the crate in front of them. A small pang went through her chest as he snuggled in close.
She’d never thought about being a mother. Before her escape, it had seemed like something nonexistent—as if something in the compound’s education program, and the people there, had quietly suggested her not to think of it. Even after, in the years following her escape, she’d never given it more than a passing thought. Too focused on survival, on staying hidden, on finding her place. When she had thought of it, it had come with fear.
Any child she made would face the same things she did. The company would be after them. And how could she possibly protect them from something she wasn’t even sure she could protect herself from?
But Ethan felt almost at home, snuggling into the crook at the front of her body like a cat. She hesitated, stiff, giving him a study. Then she twitched the blanket over his shoulders and put her arm around him in a hug, the movement feeling awkward, stiff, and alien to her.
He didn’t seem to notice. Or, if he did, he didn’t care. The bed shifted a little as he reached for the crate and worked the screen of the netlink back into the Starcats queue.
Marc peeked in a few minutes later, and she caught his eye as he lingered at the door, taking in the scene. He gave her a nod, and slipped back down the hall.
She put her hand around Ethan’s tiny shoulder, idly watching the episode with him. He explained things a few times about the characters, and she nodded each time.
As the end credits began to roll after the second episode, Marc reappeared. He caught her eye in the door. “Karin? We’re about to hit Caishen.”
Ethan rolled over next to her, his elbow bumping into her ribs. Across the room, she met Mark’s gaze and held it for a few seconds.
She gave a nod. “I’ll be right out.”
She detangled herself from the blanket, leveraging herself up and adjusting her sleep clothes so that they weren’t too embarrassing. As far as she knew, none of them owned a pair of actual PJs, with the small exception of Soo-jin’s PJ bottoms that had graced the bridge a time or two. All Karin wore was a loose, standard T-shirt with a faded concert logo that she’d picked up from a second-hand shop on Belenus in her flight school days and a worn pair of sweatpants.
Ethan followed her out of the room and up the hall, trailing after her with the episode of Starcats paused on his netlink. When she reached the bridge, the other three had all gathered around the main console.
Soo-jin gave her a sidelong look as she came in, her arms folded over her chest, and pursed her lips at the screen. “I’m sorry, Karin, but my pessimism is rising again.”
She frowned. “What’s up?”
“Hopper’s made new friends,” Marc said. “We’ve picked up an Alliance cruiser docked at Caishen.” He leaned over and fiddled with some of the controls on the dashboard, and the image on the screen grew larger. “M Class, it looks like. Probably the same one we passed on the way in.”
She sucked in a breath. The M Classes were some of the largest and most outfitted cruisers in the Alliance fleet, and this one made Caishen look like a toy. On Earth, she’d heard people compare sizes using football fields or soccer pitches, but relative dimensions were much larger in space. The Nemina would be barely a speck against it, like an elephant versus a fly. She could probably even fit her through the cruiser’s bridge windows—if she could get past the shield and wanted to make a suicide run.
“Check the comm link,” she said. “If it’s the same one, it’ll be in the system.”
“It is. EN-052. The Enmerkar.”
Cookie gave a low whistle. “Isn’t that a new one?”
“Yes.” Marc glanced up. “We’re taking a wide berth, but I doubt that matters in this case.”
“It doesn’t,” Karin said. “Enmerkar probably checked us out three hours ago. Caishen, too.” She gestured to the screen. “They’re not in the UMI dock, so we can assume that Hopper and his team were at least still up and running at the time it docked.”
“And I think we can fairly safely assume that they’re still around. And definitely watching us.” Marc straightened, stretching his back. “We weren’t trying to hide, anyway.”
“No,” Karin said. “We weren’t.”
“Well, in that case,” Cookie said. “I’ll go ahead and open a connection and send our research requests. See what we can pull from the station databanks while we’re in range. We’ll pick up more at the relay when we catch up.”
A new window appeared on the screen, overlapping the image of Caishen and the Enmerkar. With the amount of time space travel took, they’d lined up all their data requests ahead of time. As soon as he connected, the link data began to stream down the side of the holoscreen.
Soo-jin made a tsk-ing sound from behind where Cookie sat
in the pilot’s chair and ran a hand through her dreads, shaking them out over her back as she headed for the secondary navigation desk at the far end of the bridge. “Yeah, no way that this won’t go wrong.”
As they all settled in to keep watch, Karin felt a familiar niggling sensation churn up through her guts and turn all of the soft tissue to wood.
She was right. This was going to go down badly.
Chapter Eleven
A shudder went through the ship as the main air bridge locked onto the side of the Ozark. Karin had already engaged with its emergency code, which made docking easier, and the side of the ship stretched up in the Nemina’s frontal view screens.
An old colony transport, the Ozark had been originally outfitted for ten thousand people. Most of those would have slept down in cryo-storage, but the ship was still massive—easily thirty times the Nemina’s paltry size. The retro edges of its massive side tilted in front of her, a sea of metal planes that sloped and buckled into each other. The closest ones gleamed in their auxiliary lights, but beyond, the vision grew less distinct, fading into the darkness that clung to this part of the system. This far out, smack in the middle between Enlil and Amosi, the closest of the system’s dual stars made only a begrudgingly bright dot in the windows.
The Black. That’s what it was called, this far out.
She squinted as another shudder clicked through the ship, taking a quiet moment to size up the transport’s bulky sides with her navigator brain. She was supposed to be atmo-capable, but Karin wanted no part of that piloting.
Probably flies like a rock. Or a log of driftwood.
Nothing moved on it. As before, they’d tried the comms, just in case someone had come to the rescue—and, as before, none had answered. Shifting the Nemina across the Ozark’s bulky nose had shown the bridge to be empty, a fact Ethan took hard since they suspected it was his dad who had been in there last time, but it was hard to see into the shadows. Even with the Nemina’s auxiliary lights flooding the place, more than half the bridge was pitch black.