by K. Gorman
No way would Hopper have a kill-on-sight order for his only healer.
“It’s a smart place to be,” she commented. “They knew we’d be coming here.”
“Maybe I could shoot them.” She glanced up to Nick. “Do you think I should shoot them?”
He shrugged. “I definitely wouldn’t judge if you tried. But they also have blasters.”
This time, Soo-jin did hiss. “There is that. I think it’s time for your firecrackers.”
“Up a level?” He turned his focus up the stairs. “I can put them in one of the air vents, make the sound travel better.”
“Good.” Soo-jin tapped the steel wall with a knuckle. “In this metal tub, that should make it echo everywhere. Go. We’ll find a place out of the stairs to hide.”
Hoisting the backpack over one shoulder, he gave them a brief salute and made for the stairs, taking them two at a time.
Soo-jin watched him go. Then, as his footsteps faded, she narrowed her eyes at the door. “Guess we’re on our own.”
They snuck out the door and kept to the walls. Aware of the guards just around the corner, they slipped through the hallway and snuck into a cabin next to the stairwell, close enough that they’d hear guards run up next to them.
As the door closed behind them, and Karin absorbed the light from the room, Soo-jin’s face lit up from her netlink screen, brows furrowed and mouth tight in concentration. She picked up Christops’ call ID Nick had shared and sent a quick text.
Then, they waited.
Karin let out a slow breath.
Gods. What have I gotten myself into?
Being what she was, their current situation didn’t surprise her. She and Nomiki had been running ever since they’d left Earth. Hiding, fighting, escaping—she’d wanted to leave that all behind. That’s why she’d signed up to the Nemina. But the familiarity of the situation did not pass her mind. Even before, when they’d been touring their scrounge sights, she’d held a kind of anxious edge to her. Played the consummate professional, not letting either of them close. She could do her job, mind her business, and Marc and Soo-jin would do the same.
The Shadows had changed all of that.
What are they?
Her jaw stiffened as she remembered the last Shadow she’d encountered, the one that had seemed a dream. Bent over her, watching her sleep, then walking through the door as if it were air.
She found herself thinking of the compound again. Dr. Sasha. The treatments.
Then Nomiki, sitting in their room, the dark, serious expression on her face.
They’re taking our memories, Rin.
A muffled series of pops sounded outside, softened by the metal. In the light of the netlink, Soo-jin’s gaze found hers.
Karin’s chest tightened.
Go time.
They held their breaths as boots pounded outside, sounding right outside their door. Then they turned, switching through the door and rising up the stairs. Karin followed the sounds.
A second later, the netlink lit up. A picture of the hangar corridor.
Soo-jin hissed at the two guards still standing outside the door. “Sol. Why can’t they just be stupid and go upstairs?” She leaned her head back and took a breath. “All right. It’s all right. We can do this. Shoot first, ask forgiveness later. Okay.”
The light from the netlink dropped from the room. Karin had just enough time to see the blaster in Soo-jin’s other hand before darkness fell. The sudden absence in the air in front of her as Soo-jin moved forward pulled her to follow. “Ready?”
“Sure.”
“Let’s do it.” Soo-jin slapped the door panel in the dark.
“Wait!” Karin turned her voice low, a sudden idea sparking in her mind. Light pulled through the room as the door hissed open, and a flush of vulnerability ran through her midsection at the openness. “I have an idea. I’ll distract them, then you can shoot.”
Soo-jin’s eyebrow arched into her forehead, but Karin called a slip of light into her hand. It glowed between them, cradled in her palm.
“I’ve got this.”
For a second, it looked like Soo-jin wanted to argue. Her lips pursed, then tightened, and she stared at the light in Karin’s hand. “What happened to ‘laying off the magic’?”
“It’ll be fine. I think.” She shot her a quick, worried grin. “Besides, do we have any other choice?”
Soo-jin narrowed her eyes at the light. “No, I guess we don’t.”
“Then let’s go.”
She eased herself up the hall, rolling her weight through her foot with each step, keeping as quiet as she could. The air sat close around them, cool but muggy, pulled by only a light tug from the vents. Old tube lights, reminiscent of the old fluorescents she’d seen back on Enlil, made a small, fluctuating drone overhead that drilled into her nerves. She swallowed, evening her breath. With the hall this still and quiet, each rustle and click of the guards around the corner broke the hush like a flicker of lightning in the sky. By the time she reached the end, her insides were a mass of tangled knots.
Holding her breath, she strained to listen. After a few seconds, she peeked around the corner.
Two guards, both armed to the teeth, both right outside the hangar doors.
Gods, I hope there’s no more inside.
But Christops had said there weren’t. And if they couldn’t trust him now, then they might as well give their whole plan up as a bust. He had control of the hangar doors, after all. Not to mention the Ozark’s shield generator.
Putting her back to the wall, she closed her eyes and visualized the opposite end of the hall—the way the top and bottom sheets of metal met in a beveled running piece, the trio of narrow pipes that ran from the corner, the burn of the tube light illuminating the space in a dried-out version of the spectrum.
Light flared in her hand. Using her power, she drew the tube’s light down and began to form her puppet.
Without an actual visual, the puppet was going to look a misshapen, comedic mess. She could tell when the light connected to itself, but not where it connected. She couldn’t fix any displacements or malformations if she couldn’t see it.
Fortunately, it didn’t have to be perfect. All it had to do was distract.
By the sudden exclamation they both heard from the other hall, it had done just that.
Soo-jin pushed past and out from the corner, blaster raised. She shot once, adjusted her aim, and shot again.
Someone gave a short, pained yell.
She had just re-adjusted for a third shot when her eyes widened. She lunged back behind the wall just as a flash of blaster fire pierced through the spot she’d been standing and crashed against the wall. Sparks shot from impact, raining onto the riveted metal floor.
Karin jerked her hand back. Her light puppet flooded toward her as she sank down, sucking in a sharp breath. Absorbing the light into her skin, she swallowed back the whirl of nausea that sprung through her stomach.
“Shit,” Soo-jin said. She jerked her head back as another blaster bolt whined past the corner, nicking into its edge.
Pain pricked her skin as a few loose sparks fell toward them.
“All right, you two, come on out,” called a voice from around the corner. “You’re outnumbered.”
“No, we’re not,” Soo-jin muttered. “It’s two on two. And I just shot his buddy.”
“Their reinforcements are right upstairs,” she said. “And we don’t have any of those.”
“Yeah. We need to get to that door quick, and find a way to lock it.” Soo-jin’s jaw worked.
“We won’t shoot you if you come out.”
“We can’t promise the same thing,” Soo-jin called back. Then, in a lower voice, “Fuck.”
Karin frowned up and smacked at her leg.
“Don’t antagonize them.” Turning to the corner, she called back. “Give us a second, we’re deliberating.”
Soo-jin gave a quiet snort, but otherwise said nothing. Silence came from the other side of the c
orner. They listened for a few seconds to see if the guards had decided to come closer, but, after a pause, only a low murmur came up the hall.
“We have to get to that door,” Soo-jin said. “If we do, we can lock it. We still have their emergency override codes, right? And I bet they have a welding kit on the other side for ship repair. We can force them shut that way. Buy us enough time for Marc. They have spacesuits.”
Her stomach did a flop. Marc. Less than fifteen minutes before he entered the picture.
“Spacesuits?” she said, catching the last of Soo-jin’s words. She glanced up. “What—?”
“We can’t wait out here, and it’ll depressurize when they get in. We can wear them and find something to tie ourselves down with. I already asked Nick. They’re there.”
Okay, so maybe she’d missed some of Soo-jin’s scheming while the medical shot had kicked in.
“That sounds… dangerous.”
“Yeah, well so’s waiting in an exposed hallway while our ship gets in. Better to weld a big door shut between us and them, hey?”
“No, you’re right, that’s better.”
She was going to say something else, but the guard in the other hallway interrupted her.
“All right, ladies, how about this?” he called. “We only want the healer. Send her out, and we won’t shoot. The other one can toss her blaster into the corner and walk away, no harm done.”
Soo-jin gave a short hiss, eyes flashing with irritation. “They must think me so flighty and disloyal.”
Karin didn’t respond. She frowned, concentrating. Had he sounded closer? Sol, he was probably creeping up the corner to them.
One of them had to keep an eye on him.
Pushing herself back up, she splayed a hand and waved it around the corner. “Okay, give us a second. Coming out.”
Soo-jin’s eyes widened. “What? Karin, you can’t—”
“Shh.” She silenced Soo-jin with a look, then turned back to the corner. “Don’t shoot.”
“We won’t,” came the response.
She poked her head around the corner.
The guard had definitely come farther up the hall. Almost three-quarters of the way to them. In another half-dozen steps, he would have had a line of fire on them. A big man with close-shaved hair, he wore the same Caishen security colors of the others she’d seen, but his uniform had a jumbled, loose look to it. By the dark bags under his eyes, and the thin, stressed veneer on his face, she decided that he was not one of the ones she’d healed.
But she recognized the man on the floor. Part of the first group, before their faces had become a blur of features, he sprawled against the wall with a pained expression. Soot-black scorches tore across the fabric on his leg. Blood oozed from his calf where a distinct, button-shaped blaster mark had hit. He hadn’t dropped his gun, and, through the pain that turned his face into a hard grimace, his eyes were sharp and alert, waiting.
She glanced between them. Then, as she looked back up to the first guard’s face, she paused at what she saw.
Was that fear?
A smile tugged at her lips.
If only Nomiki were here. She’d give him something to be afraid of.
Except, if Nomiki were here, both the guards would be dead on the floor.
She pushed the thought back and caught his gaze. “Have you guys found out about the Fallon ship, yet?”
The standing guard scowled. “Is it one of yours?”
“No. It’s kind of weird that it’s out here, though, isn’t it?”
Her fingers tapped against the inside of her palm in a flutter. Hyper-aware of her vulnerability away from the wall, and the clock ticking down to when Marc would arrive, she resisted the urge to break their eye contact, instead soaking up everything in her peripheral vision. The metal doors yawned up on the right, past the guard’s shoulder, putting a splash of darker metal inset from the rest of the hallway. Two door panels gleamed on either side, their lights green and ready to open.
Gods, they were so close.
The guard grunted. Still on edge, though it looked like he’d relaxed a few degrees, he eyed her suspiciously. “Won’t matter soon. Our cruiser’s back on radar. Besides, we’re on treaty.”
“Oh, yes.” Sarcasm dripped from Soo-jin’s voice as it came around the corner behind her. “The empire with the most firepower among the separate nations is definitely going to care about a treaty right now. Do they know who sent the Shadows? Maybe they already consider themselves at war.”
He frowned. “They’re not stupid. They can see the feeds.” He paused, and his frown deepened. “They’ll know we aren’t responsible.”
As the two of them chatted, Karin let her gaze wander, checking every possible nook and cranny of the hall. A comms terminal jutted out past the hangar doors, but what could she do with that? Call an alert? Make a prank call?
Sol. This is impossible.
“Yes,” Soo-jin continued. “They can see the feeds. And you can bet that fifth column never went away after the war, hey? I bet they know all about your crisis.”
“What are you getting at?”
“Why do you think they’re here? And I mean here, of all places? They know Karin’s here.”
The guard processed this with a stony face. Then his expression twisted. He jerked his gun, gesturing to Karin and the door. “Whatever. You, get over here.”
Huh. Such a change in attitude. She was ‘you’ now. She let out a breath, and something in her chest sagged. They’d run out of options. An unwelcome pricking blurred the edges of her eyes, and she blinked it back.
Gods. This is it.
A raw, dry, sick feeling scraped at her stomach as she took a step forward.
But, as she made to take the second step, movement caught her attention.
At the far end of the hall, a metal ball floated into view.
She sucked in a breath and jerked her gaze to the ground, mind whirling.
Holy shit.
They could still do this.
“Come on. I have to take you back to HQ.”
The guard hadn’t moved. Neither of them had. Both faced her, their backs to the oncoming ball. The one who had spoken to them watched her, suspicion rising in his gaze, but the one on the floor and that Soo-jin had shot didn’t focus on her. His attention wandered around their side of the hall, darting back and forth.
She swallowed hard, and forced a wobble in her step. Keep them focused. “Sorry, just a little bit sick is all.”
“Sick?”
Frowning up, she caught his gaze again. “You know what happened in the hall, right?”
“What?”
“I threw up. Almost did it again just a few minutes ago.” She forced a half-smile. In her peripheral vision, the ball had turned up the hall and cleared over half the space. Only a few more seconds before it got in range for its attack. “Guess there’s a limit to the amount of light I can put out a day.”
“Yeah, yeah, tell that to the jury.” A grimace curled the guard’s lip back, and he jerked his head toward the door. “Come on, we still got people needing healing.”
“He still wants me to be able to heal, right? My powers aren’t some magical thing. They came from a lab. They’re finite.”
Come on, come on, come on, come on.
“Still not my problem,” he said. “Now, your friend’s blaster, on the other hand—Lady, if you could just—”
His last words cut out in a crackle of electricity. He whipped around as his companion screamed. Over two meters closer to the ball and with no way to dodge, the charge attack caught him full on. He went down, twitching as arcs of electricity crawled and flashed across the ball around him. Smoke hissed through his clothes, tinging the air. Still in his hand, his blaster went off twice as he seized, once into the wall and once into his foot. A choking sound gargled up through his throat.
A blaster bolt streaked past Karin’s shoulder and smashed into the wall above the soldier with a crack. Soo-jin sprinted past and
fired again. It glanced off his shoulder as he lunged to the side, gathering his blaster back up.
Her third shot smashed into his leg. He went down before he could fire, still scrambling to bring his blaster to bear.
A second later, a ball of electricity engulfed him.
He seized with a scream, smacking against the wall and floor, then went still.
“Sol’s fucking saints,” Soo-jin said. “Go, go, go!”
As the ball readied for another attack, they sprinted for the hangar doors. Unlike the station’s regular hallways, these had a double-seal. A grinding sounded in the wall as they slapped at the door panel and the doors began to open, slow and heavy on their track. A widening slice of the inside hangar, tall and spacious, grew in the middle.
Electricity crackled. They threw themselves apart as the discharge shot past them. Heat slid through Karin’s waist at its proximity. She hit the opening door behind her, rebounded, and leapt for the skinny gap between them. Metal bumped and scraped her back as she lunged through, Soo-jin behind her.
As one, they went for the inner panel to slap it closed.
Then, staring at the doors, they backed up.
Oh gods, oh gods, oh gods.
Not meant for sudden changes, the doors lumbered to a slow stop. Then shifted direction. Karin’s eyes widened as she caught sight of movement through the gap.
Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit.
Just before they closed, and with the casual air of a Sunday flyer, the ball floated through the gap and into the room.
Chapter Twenty-Six
“Sol’s motherfucking child.” Soo-jin jogged back from the door, pulling Karin with her. “Shit.”
As the ball turned their way, it paused for a second as if to give them a consideration. Gods knew what its programming and hardware told it. Adrenaline shot through her blood as it began to float toward them again. Shaking, she swallowed back an echo of her earlier nausea.
Electricity crackled on its front.
“Side!”
Soo-jin shoved them right and almost landed on her as they both staggered out of the way of the blast. It sailed through the vacuous space of the hangar and hit the wall on the other side with a quiet, understated crackle.