by K. Gorman
“Stop!” she shouted, her System broken and stilted. “Why are you doing this? What have we done?”
Karin halted. Behind her, another one carried a small, swaddled child in her arms, clearly its mother. The rest of the group flinched back from her, clearly scared out of their minds.
She felt Nomiki join her, peering over her shoulder.
“Shit,” her sister said.
Behind them sat the generator for their small settlement. She glanced at its sides, and a sinking feeling hit her as she recognized the make.
“That’s a grav-based electrical generator,” she said, her upper lip curling. “That’s what was interfering with the sensors.”
Given the sensitivity of Fallon’s sensor array and the history of gravity being used in some old, now-banned weapons, it made sense that it would show up.
She looked back down, a bitter taste catching the back of her throat as she took in the small group.
Due to population density, Shadow attacks were concentrated in cities. This wasn’t a doomsday cult. They were just settlers―likely hiding away from the attacks.
And they had definitely killed one of them for their trouble.
She made a disgusted noise in her throat and turned around.
“Fuck.”
Chapter Seven
“That was a waste of fucking time,” Karin growled as she strode up the main corridor of the Courant, clicking a section of her armor that set the suit’s battlemode to standby.
“A necessary waste,” Nomiki admonished, scrolling through the holoscreen on her arm. “They are trying to be proactive.”
The sounds of the hallway clicked and hummed around them, a mix of techs, soldiers, and engineers working the remote stations. Several screens read out scrolling data, and the chatter of comms lines and command read-outs filled the background. Add to that, the subtle clicks and whirs of their suits, and the heavy tromp of Ganis’ mechanized armor…
The noise throbbed at her head.
“There were kids, Nomiki. Innocents.” The word hissed through her teeth. “Fuck, did they even try to communicate with them?”
“Radios didn’t patch that far, not on cross frequencies like we’re using to patch into Earth comms.” This time, her sister looked up from her wrist and flashed a frown in her direction. “And you know that. What’s your problem?”
Yes, she had known that. And yes, she also knew that all parties involved―save the Centauri, who were being blocked out, and the Martians, who had only just arrived with a handful of ships―were doing their damnedest to work together and solve the problem.
But she couldn’t help the frustration that boiled at the edges of her mind, or the anger that slipped through her arteries like a hot drug.
Sasha was out there, actively working to end the universe―and doing a very good job of it so far―and here they were, fucking up the lives of ordinary people who were just trying to get by and ride out the storm.
Suns.
It was only by sheer fluke―and the outdated machinations of a long-dead, quasi-alive geneticist―that they’d managed to stave her off thus far.
That thought earned her a mental snort from Tia.
Well, you’re not wrong there.
She brushed it off with a shake of her head.
“My problem is that we’re wasting my time on wild goose chases when I could be using my powers to explore the other dimensions, see how they operate.”
“Yes, you’ve said as much before.” Nomiki snorted. “But that sounds like more of a goose chase than what we just did. How do you know which one will contain Sasha? How do you know that she’s even there?”
Something inside her snapped. Power flooded through her. The dimensional fields shivered like a drum―or a pond teeming under rain. A noise like static rose in her ears, along with a ringing.
“Well, she certainly isn’t here,” she snarled, rounding on Nomiki.
For a second, everything hung in the balance, shivering, waiting.
With conscious effort, she let go of the dimensional field and let its hold fall.
Nomiki stared at her. And, as the hall’s sudden quiet came to her attention, she realized she wasn’t the only one.
More than a few of the techs and soldiers had stopped what they were doing to look at her. Behind Nomiki, Jon met her eyes, a mix of caution and calculation on his expression, and Ganis behind him.
Hells. This will get back to Crane.
Nomiki was the first to break the quiet. She dropped what she was doing on her wrist screen, tilted her head in, and stepped closer. “You need to keep control of that.”
Karin’s jaw muscles tensed.
“I am keeping control of it.”
Nomiki gave her a pitying smile.
“The sad part is that you actually believe that, sister.” Her eyebrows furrowed, gaze flicking over her face. “There’s blood from your nose.”
Karin snapped her hand up to her face. Sure enough, the tips of her fingers came away red. Belatedly, she felt the distinct tickle and wetness of it on her face.
That was happening a lot lately.
The modifications make your brain work more, which uses more blood, Tia explained. Your body is not used to it, yet. The nose has thinner membranes in it. They’re more susceptible to breaking. It’s likely one ruptured during your excursion.
‘Excursion.’ What a tame way to put it.
“I’m fine,” she said. “Nothing major.”
But, even as she said it, the words felt hollow to her. And by the way the sympathy on Nomiki’s face grew, her sister heard it, too.
“You know we’re on your side, right?”
“Yes.” Karin frowned. “Of course.”
“Then stop setting us up as your antagonists. This isn’t like you, ’Rin.”
They stared at each other for a few seconds, and the lull in the hallway began to peter off. Broken-off conversations resumed. One by one, people returned to their tasks.
She could still feel their attention, though. As if she were a bomb that could blow at any minute.
It wasn’t a secret what she could do with her new powers. In fact, she was willing to bet that the power of rumor had twisted the story of her versus the Centauri squad quite a lot. At least half of these people, if not more, had seen firsthand the literal bloodbath she’d left in the hallways of the compound. Hells, they were still cleaning bits of it six days later. And those who hadn’t seen―well, they would have heard from the rest.
And then there was the matter of the brain in the tank. Much fewer had seen what had become of Tia’s real body―the generals on scene had been very quick to shut that down and secure it―but rumor traveled fast, and the image of a cybernetic brain in a tank was hard to keep down.
She let out a breath and shook her head.
“Sorry. You’re right. I don’t know what’s gotten into me.”
“It’s paranoia,” Nomiki said bluntly. “Comes with the supersoldier programming. You learn to deal with it.”
She snorted. “Really?”
“Really. It takes time, though.” Nomiki glanced to the side, her brow forming a crease that indicated she was analyzing something. “I’m not sure it’s a good idea for you to come to the war room right now.”
She quirked an eyebrow. “No? Worried I’ll kill the general?”
Nomiki sighed. “Okay, first of all―we don’t say things like ‘kill the general’ in public corridors, even when joking. And second―no, I don’t think you would kill him, but currently, neither you nor Crane have the patience to make all the right social steps in order to deal with each other, and neither of you know each other well enough to make an accurate reading, especially given your new paranoia.”
Yeah. All right. That made sense.
“Plus,” Nomiki continued. “It’s a room full of people you are subconsciously going to think of as potential enemies, so you will likely always be one step away from fight mode.”
Karin winc
ed.
Yeah, she’d been noticing that lately. Any time she went into a place with more than a few people, her brain worked in overdrive.
It was only when she was alone that she could actually let her guard down.
“You’re right. I hadn’t really…thought of that.”
Nomiki gave her a half-smile. Her hand came up to squeeze Karin’s shoulder armor. It was a testament to Nomiki’s strength that Karin actually felt the gesture under her armor.
“Go to our prep room and take a minute. Hells, take five hours. It’ll be at least that long before we hit Brazil. Gods know you need the rest.”
It would be more like ten hours before they reached Brazil, since they were against a tail wind for the return journey, but Karin saw her point―she’d hardly had any time to rest since she’d come out of the tank, and her body had gone under major modification. Her muscles were still growing, and her brain felt all tingly every so often.
Sometimes, she saw little flashes of light, like sparks―or stars. A definite signifier that she needed sleep.
“It’ll allow you to think things through, too. And who knows, maybe you’ll figure out how to find Sasha. That’s how it worked before with Tylanus, right?” Nomiki’s mouth quirked.
“I guess, yeah.”
It hadn’t been quite how it had worked―her latest communication with Tylanus, Dr. Sasha’s son who was project Tartarus, had occurred in dreams, and usually, it was he that reached out to her, though the last ones certainly implied that she’d been the one doing the ‘traveling’, so to speak.
Gods. Now that Nomiki mentioned it, she did feel tired. Not so much bodily, though her muscles ached, but in her mind.
“Yeah,” she said, nodding. “I’ll go do that. Thanks.”
“No problem,” Nomiki said, giving her shoulder a pat before letting her hand drop and stepping away. “I’ll brief Crane. You get some rest―and I mean it: rest.”
“Yes, sis.”
She chuckled at Nomiki’s tone and broke apart, veering to the left as her sister walked off with a wave. Jon, moving with his usual careful competence, slid noiselessly around her, meeting her eyes and bobbing his head as he passed. He still carried the large gun in his arms. And the sight of him in the corridor, even more enormous in the klemptas armor, made her smile.
He could almost pass for a cyborg.
She watched them go, Ganis giving her a small wave with her suit’s mechanized fingers as she passed, then bobbed to the left, casually following her mental map of the ship as she took a stairwell down several levels.
And, almost as soon as she’d finished the first flight down, and the casual noise and busyness of the main corridor muted behind the hiss of the closing door, she felt her defenses begin to relax.
Gods, Nomiki was right. She had been on guard.
And apparently, being on guard turned her into a paranoid, trigger-happy bitch.
In her mind, Tia made a throat-clearing noise.
Just because you have heightened paranoia doesn’t mean there’s nothing wrong.
Yes, yes, I’m well aware, thank you, she grumbled back. But I’d like to be able to think clearly, and she’s right―I can’t do that around other people, not if my brain is unconsciously tagging them as potential threats.
She’d have to ask Nomiki how she did it. Her sister did, after all, have a lifetime of experience as a combat Program.
Away from the main corridors, the ship seemed to slow down. Although there were still people―this was a Fallon warship, after all, and they were in an active wartime situation―there were less of them, and the ship was not currently on an active combat mission like it had been fifteen minutes ago. They had ten hours of flight time to tie up loose ends, and most of those had already been tied up. It also felt more comfortable down here. There was less staring. Although people did seem to do a double-take when they saw her, she was a familiar sight now, and they left her alone.
Plus, they hadn’t been upstairs when she’d let her powers run hot, so to speak.
Slowly, with every minute that passed, she relaxed.
By the time she got to their prep room, a small bay in a slightly busier part of the ship, given its location close to the main weapons store, her body allowed the rest of her battle instincts to settle down.
The door hissed shut behind her. She closed her eyes, let out a long, slow breath, and relaxed.
Slowly, the headache that had been building began to ease.
The bay was both a prep room and a rest hub. About four times the size of her small cabin on the Nemina, it had three bunks built into the wall, with the option of seven others available for pull-out from various locations, a small Mess station with a foodstore, fridge, and maker, and racks beside each bunk―which also doubled as benches―to help mount the armor for wear and disrobing.
Like most of the ship, it was at the peak of design, with each nook and cranny fitting in a smooth, well-thought out way, each running into the other with finesse, and colored with trim in the Courant’s theme―red for the blood of its namesake predecessor’s historical battle against the Alliance ship, Medusa, blue for the sea it was originally built in, and silver-white for its titular moon.
After a moment, she let out another sigh and relaxed her shoulders down. Then, she reached out for the light setting and, with an easy flick, switched the cabin into a dimmer mode.
Slowly, she felt the stress of the day leave, and her mind begin to clear.
Well, that was over.
Nomiki was right. She hadn’t had much time to rest―not really. Even the nine hours from earlier hadn’t been enough to make up for the lack of the last week. From the moment she’d stepped out of the tank and laid waste to the Centauri squadron that had been threatening them, she’d been on a casual alert. First, it had been about the Cradle, and her need to protect Tia’s brain and consciousness. Then, it had been everything else.
She always felt like she’d needed to be ‘on’―to be accounting things, making sure everything had been done correctly, that nothing was going to happen. Sleep, she felt, was a risk. Especially in the beginning, with Nomiki injured and her trust levels very low.
And she’d been so tired lately.
Always, her brain was working. Running diagnostics, backtracking memories, keeping tabs on her new powers and any potential fluctuations in the fields of reality around them. That, and she was technically still healing from her fight with the Centauri’s former Grand Regent. Even if the wound had closed, it still itched, and the muscle ached underneath it. Then again, most of her muscles were aching these days.
That was the cost of bulking up so fast. Some of her bones had shifted, too, and she’d gotten taller.
Takahashi remarked on it during each of their checkups. Scans showed that she’d gained about a centimeter and a half of height so far, and that her bones had grown denser. Her breathing pattern had also changed, thanks to an increase in lung capacity, and her eyesight had definitely sharpened. She could see better at night, too.
She sighed―again. She’d need another check-up with the doctor when she came back from the mission. He was always waiting for her.
But that was later. Right now, her job was to relax. Rest.
She crossed the small room, pivoted, eased herself down on the center bunk, and ran a thumb across the surface of her armor, admiring it. The cave scuffle had lent new scratches to its surface―small tears and scrapes that registered as spider-thin lines that caught the light when she turned it. A bullet-path had skimmed the armor’s knee joint, and she connected it to the flash of pressure and alarms from when she’d disabled the man she’d pushed into the Shadow World. Another had blackened part of her thigh. She rubbed at it with the tensile material on the tips of her fingers, and part of it began to smudge away.
Suns, bullets. They had used actual bullets. And not even modern ballistics rounds like the group in Australia had―these had been antiques.
The last time she’d seen one o
f their ilk, it had been lying on the ground during a scrounging run. But, then again, this was Old Earth they were on.
Nowadays, if they wanted projectiles, people got more creative with them. Explosive bullets. Armor-piercing rounds.
A tingling sensation went through her brain, and something shifted in her thoughts. She caught a flash of brown eyes in her mind’s eye before Tia’s thought-voice came in.
Some used guns when I was growing up. They aren’t that ancient―not here.
At that, she hid a laugh. “Tia, you died seventy years ago.”
I like to think of myself as modern, she sniffed. I was at the height of technological advancement in my profession.
“Your profession didn’t use guns.”
No, but we had security. They used guns.
Karin frowned, thinking back to her time at the compound. Now that she thought about it, security then had been using bullet-guns as opposed to the laser style that modern societies preferred these days.
Lasers were easy to load, lasted forever, were more accurate, and less wasteful.
And they didn’t come with a kick like launching a bullet did.
She frowned. How had she forgotten that?
Maybe that had been part of the memories Tia had needed to strip and repress in order to transfer into her mind.
Her teeth bared involuntarily.
She did not like the idea of having lost things, though she knew she had.
Of course, if she’d really lost the memory, then it wouldn’t have returned, would it? She wouldn’t be able to tell what she’d lost―it’d just be gone.
Shit. She definitely didn’t want to think about that. There’d been enough holes in her memory before she’d let Tia fuck around with it.
She decided to switch topics. Slightly. “What are you up to in there? I keep feeling my brain working.”