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

by K. Gorman

Just keep going. Get down, hit the ground floor, and join Marc in the panic room. We’ll all be playing cards and chatting soon, bored out of our minds.

  Another clunk sounded from above, making her flinch, but nothing else followed.

  At the next landing, they found Dr. Ma.

  The smell reached them before anything else, a kind of coppery, pungent scent that tripped her earlier nausea into returning, then Laika made a sound, a kind of instinctual, mewling gasp that would sit in the back of Karin’s nightmares for a long moment, and the entire group stopped. Without a word, Baik made his way to the front and turned on his flashlight.

  She’d been torn nearly in half. Gore and viscera spread in a bloody, messy spill from her abdomen, parts of it half-eaten and pulled toward the middle seam of the double doorway as if the creature had gone for a snack before leaving. Blood and bits of flesh smeared across the walls, some of it gleaming when Baik’s light swept across it. Her lab coat was soaked with the stuff, the parts closest to her abdomen indistinguishable from her wounds. More blood had seeped into its elbow. Her arm bent in an odd way that, combined with the angle of her body and the limp placement of her head and limbs, made it look as though she’d been thrown there at speed.

  Baik bent down next to her. He didn’t feel her pulse, but he did touch her cheek. Her eyes, open and blank, stared at a spot somewhere to the right.

  “Going cold,” he said. “Nothing we can do.”

  Sol’s child—what could they have done? Maybe if they’d been in a city and she’d been attacked next to an EMS ward, they could have pieced her back together and allowed her to survive, but they were nowhere near the city and, although this facility did have medical labs, she severely doubted they had anything on the scale Dr. Ma would have needed.

  Hells. She has a family. Karin remembered what Pranav had said, about them being turned Lost. Remembered, too, the kindness Dr. Ma had shown her earlier that day, and the way her dark eyes had flicked her way when she’d asked about Seirlin.

  Her jaw stiffened, and she shoved the feelings away. Cold doused her body.

  When we get out of here, I’ll ask to heal them sooner rather than later.

  Baik leaned forward to shut her eyelids, then got back to his feet. Without a word, he turned to lead the way to the next level. Karin’s shoe scuffed against the floor as she made to follow, and she stumbled for a second before catching her balance.

  A hand found her wrist. She followed it back to its owner to see David looking at her, a concerned sympathy in his gaze.

  “I’m fine,” she told them. “I’ve seen bodies before.”

  Of course, the bodies had never been quite like this. Nomiki was a bit neater when she killed, and she much preferred stumbling onto those corpses as opposed to the sickening mess the creatures had left behind them.

  Her stomach churned again.

  Okay, maybe she wasn’t fine.

  Unfortunately, Dr. Ma didn’t mark the end of the dead scientists they’d find that night. When Baik got to the next stairwell and opened the door, his gaze snapped down with a sharp jerk. Karin caught the edge of a shoe through the gap. After a moment, David’s grip on her wrist tightened. She didn’t resist when he pulled her back, away from the soldiers, and put himself between her and the view of the body outside.

  But, just as Baik and the other two were heading out the door, a click sounded up the hall.

  Her heart jumped against her ribs. Everyone froze.

  Baik’s comms unit crackled audibly. He relaxed and straightened, a hand going to his earpiece. “Yes, Colahary, it’s us at the stairwell. Don’t shoot.”

  Two figures detached themselves from behind a row of cabinets on the wall, and her eyes lit up as she caught sight of Marc.

  Gods, he’s all right.

  A part of her went weak, the relief rushing through her fast. David carefully took her elbow and steered her the rest of the way through the door, blocking her from Dr. Lang’s remains on the floor. As they passed, his slumped form appeared in her peripheral vision, sporting a significant amount of red. She did not look over.

  Once clear of the mess, she turned her walk into a stride. As Baik and the others went to confer with Colahary, she gave Marc a hug, holding him tight.

  It didn’t last long. Baik started swearing.

  “Bad news,” he said, turning to the rest of them. “They’re between us and the bunker.”

  “It looked like they were guarding it,” Marc said. Though he kept his tone light and professional, she could feel the tension in his back and in the arm that held her. “Pacing, sniffing around.”

  “Like they knew where we were going to go,” Colahary confirmed.

  A rocky knot formed in her stomach. She’d worried that the creatures would be smart enough to check the elevators on all floors to find them. Finding and guarding the complex’s safe point took their intelligence to a whole different level.

  It also brought the rest of the attack into question. They’d clearly gone for the beacon, and then her—why? There had to be a reason. Was the beacon an actual threat to them and what they were trying to accomplish? And then there was the whole business with Tylanus. In her dream, he’d been angry that she’d killed one. She didn’t believe that the dream-Tylanus was real, but she’d seen Nomiki work well enough to understand the power of the subconscious. Some part of her mind had recognized he was trying to tell her something in a way that she could relate to

  “They killed both Dr. Ma and Dr. Lang,” she murmured, almost to herself. “If this is a coordinated attack, they’re hitting all the main points.”

  Either her murmur hadn’t been as quiet as she’d realized, or Baik’s augments extended even to his hearing.

  “If it is, then we need a different plan. The bunker is no longer an option. Logic dictates that we go for the vehicles, but if they’ve planned this far, then the normal vehicles will likely be under guard, as well.” He cleared his throat and lifted his gaze to David. “Where did you park the Lemoore?”

  “Right side of the security housing, next to one of the unused drop bins. The lot was full that day, sir.”

  Baik considered that. “By the fence?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Then we can cut through. There’s a laser tool in the back. It’ll do for the fence wire.” He glanced around, meeting each of their eyes. “We move quick and silent. Seras, Laika, you’re on front. Colahary, you keep the back. We’ll figure out a better plan on the way, but for now, let’s keep moving.”

  As they started out, heading back down the hallway they’d come from, Karin had a sudden, icy realization. Baik hadn’t used his radio except to communicate with Colahary, and most of the complex’s soldiers had been on the roof with them. And if he wasn’t communicating with anyone else, then that meant…

  Everyone else in the complex was likely dead.

  Chapter Twenty

  The cool, nighttime breeze bit into the back of her neck, raising goosebumps on her skin as it slipped under her shirt. She, Marc, and Seras crouched by the side of one of the drop bins, a big metal hunk of a box that had been designed to drop to the surface of a planet during the Border Wars, sustain fire, and keep the supplies inside safe. By the smell that rose up from its side, either some of those supplies had rotted, or it had been turned into a dumpster in its recent life.

  In front of them, Baik, David, and Laika worked around the car. Baik no longer wore his white jacket but had changed into a set of pale, tundra-style fatigues that he’d dug out of a storage they’d passed. As he crouch-walked up to the vehicle’s passenger side door and pressed one hand on top of the handle to muffle it, she winced at the slight pop it made, imagining it carrying to the ears of the creatures—wherever they were.

  The interior lights of the car slipped on, but she doused them with a thought. Their energy slid into her skin, neither warm nor cold, and Baik leaned in further, reaching over to something on the driver’s side. A second later, the trunk clicked open.


  This time, they all winced at the sound it made. They’d crossed the yard safely, first moving along the outside of the building’s right arm, keeping to a low, crouching walk that had had her knees, shoulders, and thighs burning with exertion partway into it. They’d heard two of the creatures as they’d passed the still-open gym doors and found two more bodies—both soldiers—strewn across the lot.

  Karin hadn’t glanced inside to see if the Lost she’d been about to heal, the ones in the front rows that she hadn’t had time to get to, were still there, but there was a disquiet to the air that made the hairs on the back of her neck rise up. The whisper-click of claws on the gym’s resin flooring had hurried them along.

  Except for the interior of the buildings, where she still caught sight of the occasional exit sign and fire station through the windows, everything had gone dark. That included the fence, as well. Dead bulbs hung over the electrical warning, a few of them growing misty with the change in weather. Even more eerie was how quiet it had gotten. She’d thought it had been quiet before, peaceful, with the chirp of birdsong in the air, but this was the dead quiet of absolutely nothing. No hum of lights or netlinks, no whir of motors—nothing. One of Nova’s moons had risen, only a quarter full, casting a blue-ish tint on the scene.

  The effect reminded her of the underworld and the stories she’d read, which in turn reminded her of all the dead children who had been visiting her in dreams—which, in turn, drove her mind back to images of the death she’d witnessed that night. Of Dr. Ma, laid out like a corpse for crows, and Dr. Lang, who hadn’t fared much better. She remembered the way he’d jostled her as he’d run off the rooftop, and the cut-off screams of those who’d been dying in the darkness behind him.

  She wondered if Pranav had made it and was hiding out somewhere. And Warren, whom she hadn’t heard from since David had given her the drink and the apple.

  Emotion overwhelmed her, closing her throat in an audible, staggered breath, and Marc leaned in on instinct, sheltering her with his body. He’d been doing that most of the trip, keeping to the outside with her against the wall. Someone—Colahary, she thought—had given him a blaster, and he held it in his right hand, tip angled to the ground. He was a warm, comfortable silhouette in her peripheral vision, the dark of his clothing marred only by two darts of white that crossed the sleeves of the T-shirt he wore.

  As he caught her looking, his hand came up and slid around her forearm, giving it a reassuring squeeze. Her jaw stiffened, grim thoughts whirring in her mind. After a moment, she returned his squeeze with a nudge.

  We’ll get through this. We have to.

  But she’d never been very good at pep talks, even to herself, and she knew a lie when she thought it. Watching Baik hand Laika the laser tool, and listening carefully to every small click and groan and crunch and rustle they made and the silence that had taken the rest of the complex, she knew there was a very real likelihood that they were going to die there.

  They had a plan, at least. A very, run-of-the-mill plan that ground right down to ‘distract them and run,’ with her providing a distraction through her light and Colahary, who was the fastest, throwing a rock into the forest to make it more convincing before he sprinted back their way and they gunned it through the fence they were about to cut.

  Baik had come up with it, along with input from her and Marc. It wasn’t a very good plan. In fact, as the night crept on and the tiny sounds from in front of her kept building up, it occurred to her that very few of the plans she’d been involved with had been very good. Adequate, yes, and desperate, and this one had both of those. That they had weapons was an added bonus, as was the vehicle, even if the Lemoore was land only.

  Her fingers itched for the Nemina’s controls.

  Gods. Didn’t I promise never to leave her cockpit again?

  As far as land-vehicles went, the Lemoore wasn’t a terrible choice—certainly better than the Senschel Soo-jin had been cranking around with on Enlil. While it wasn’t a military vehicle per se, it had a thick, solid frame, a semi-sporty look that promised both torque and speed, and, with Baik’s quicksave budget behind its wheel, she imagined it had had all sorts of after-market modifications done to it.

  Hopefully, those modifications included things like demon-proof glass and, by the looks of the field and forest outside the fence, undercarriage reinforcements.

  Gods, she wished Nomiki were here.

  The fence rattled, but only for a half-second before Laika brought her hand up and quieted the sound. Everyone went still, holding their breath, listening. Karin’s heart thumped in her chest.

  When nothing happened, they continued on. Laika activated the blade of the laser tool, ready to cut through the fence at their signal. Its edge made an orange glow that contrasted brightly against the blue of the night.

  Maybe I’ll make my puppet orange, this time. Change it up from the normal white I’ve been doing. It’d even look like a soldier’s emergency flare, or at least the ones she’d seen in Border Wars dramas. By the age of the building, she assumed they still had some in store here.

  Marc gave her a nudge with his elbow, and she realized that everyone was staring at her. She stiffened, a panicked thought setting in—Gods, what have I done now?—before she saw that everyone was in place and ready. Baik gave her a very solemn, stoic thumbs-up sign, in case it hadn’t been obvious.

  She nodded, and he reached to the comms link on his wrist and gave it three taps, sending a crackle of static over to where Colahary hid on the hillside of the base, ready to throw a wrench they’d found.

  A few seconds later, they heard the distinct sound of something smacking against tree branches and thumping against the ground.

  She sprang into action. Light flared in her hands. She pressed them close to her chest, focusing, hiding the light, directing it where she wanted. A second later, a matching dart of orange appeared on the other side of the fence, where Colahary had thrown the wrench. It wavered like a will o’ wisp for a moment, then shot into the trees. Too fast. She slowed it down, then gave it a bump that staggered its path, as if someone were running through the woods with a flashlight.

  The monsters didn’t scream. They didn’t make any sound at all. All she saw of them was a string of shadows that flowed around the end of the building, one coming from down its side, then rushing over the fence. There was a slight ring of metal as they went over, and a rustle of leaves, but that was all.

  Marc grabbed her arm and hauled her up. They made for the car, easing themselves into the backseat as quietly as they could. David got in on Marc’s right, with Seras on his right, her blaster ready to fire through the open window. Behind them, Laika began to cut through the fence. Each link gave a tiny ring of metal as she cut through, and the ends glowed the same orange as her knife, like pinpricks in the dark.

  Jaw tight, heart thumping, Karin turned her anxious, darting gaze to the front. Baik was ready, buckled in, the key engaged and the security light flashing green. His finger remained poised over the ignition button, the other hand on the throttle, ready to send them racing out of the base as soon as the fence was down.

  Through the windshield, there was no sign of Colahary.

  But, by the right-hand corner of the building, she saw a shadow move.

  The monster was coming right for them.

  “Fuck,” Baik said. “Laika, go, go, go!”

  Laika stopped trying for stealth. She held the tool up at a high angle and swept down hard. The fence rang and jangled as she kicked it out.

  A howl rose up from the forest.

  “That’s enough,” Baik yelled. “Get in!”

  The car rocked. Seras leaned out the window and squeezed off a few shots, one bolt smacking the monster in the face and the other sailing straight past and into the downhill part of the forest beyond.

  Karin jerked up and yelped as a shadow raced around the back edge of the drop-bin and sped for her door, but realized it was only Colahary. He lunged inside with a leap,
scrambling over their laps to drag himself in. Laika shoved him from behind, then squeezed herself in and slammed the door. The engine roared to life. Headlights pierced the blue night, turning the scene into a blaze of light and shadow and illuminating the creature that was barreling toward them in a sickening set of gleams, like it were made of liquid oil.

  She seized the chance. Under her control, the headlights brightened, then flared. A loud cacophony of pops, and a high-pitched, keening squeal, ripped through the yard as her light hit the creature. The car bumped back, tires churning up gravel. A burst of speed took them backward through the fence, the remaining upright portion knocking and scraping against the right-hand windows and hitting the side mirror with a hard snag that gave with a wrench and screech of metal.

  As Baik spun them around, she twisted to track the creatures. There was a second or so where the headlights seemed to bend, but her light separated as the car completed its turn. She smashed her light into the creature in an unrefined, amorphous blob, too rushed to do anything else.

  The car rocked over the grass, bumping hard as Baik pointed it toward the road, but smoothed out the second the wheels touched asphalt. Baik took a moment to shift one of the levers on his left, and something new engaged in the engine. Then they were racing down a winding forest road, trees whipping by on either side, speeding their way down into the valley and away from the complex.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  They didn’t sleep the rest of the night. Baik drove, only slowing their breakneck sprint into a more cruise-controlled, fast-paced drive as the road evened out and they broke past the trees and into the hedgerows of the valley.

  The backseat was full—overfull, with five people sharing three seats, but both she and David fit on the skinnier side of humans. As a result, they jammed in, their hips and shoulders crammed together and feeling every tip and jerk of the journey. For more than thirty minutes after they’d left the complex, the tires rumbled and bumped on a mix of packed gravel and patched concrete, the latter showing up once on a hover-train crossing to supplement the metal, then again whenever an intersection or driveway opening showed up.