The Splitting (The Matsumoto Trilogy Book 2)

by Sarah K. L. Wilson

  This was bad! If we were already under attack how would we get to the colony in time? I hadn’t believed them that the shadows would be on top of us so quickly. How could they know we were here? They didn’t have any modern tech. Was it because our allies were half-shadow themselves? Were they connected somehow? Or had it just been good old-fashioned surveillance? Maybe they had been waiting around at the base of the hill the whole time we were on the ledge.

  The next wave hit me like an avalanche and then our way was blocked by a wall of shadows. I unslung my nettlegun. The Baldric Three sunk to their knees, hands held to the sides of their heads like they were trying to hold their brains inside. The pain was fierce. Dricoll and I opened fire.

  I ran forward, positioning myself in front of the Three and splashing the shadows before me with a wave of nettles. They tore like tissue paper, but re-formed just as quickly. Behind me Driscoll was screaming at the Three to get up as he fired into the shadows closing behind us.

  The nettles were useless. Desperate, I kicked the hand-to-hand program into overdrive as the first wave of shadow-figures materialized in front of me. They were close enough that I could smell rotting fungus and the ringing sound they left in my mind left a copper aftertaste under my tongue.

  They were humanoid, some more human looking than others. Before they had only appeared as reflections of us, but now they assumed their own shapes.

  The ones that weren’t as human were taller and thinner with an extra set of arms and an elongated lower jaw. Their hair was mane-like and wild. They must be the original residents of Baldric. The part of my brain that wasn’t busily fighting for survival took a moment to marvel at how similar to humans this life-form was. That life existed at all on other planets was phenomenal, to have it appear so similar to ours was astronomically rare. Why in the world would my family have wiped out such a rare and amazing species? Did they pose a threat to our Empire?

  I didn’t have long to dwell on that as the shadows flooded in. I leapt forward, spinning in a kick that threw five of them into their own ranks. I spiraled around, punching another in his elongated jaw, and dodging a furious attack from my right. With so many of them trying to engage me, they were getting in their own way, but I needed to defend the Baldric Three and Driscoll. They didn’t have my advantages.

  I danced around them, trying to avoid Driscoll’s friendly fire while still battling the shadows. The sound of their rushing voices, for that must be what that was in my head, was overwhelming. I couldn’t pick any particular voice out; instead they melded together within me. No wonder the Baldric Three were frozen, clutching their heads pain. Whatever was still human in them must find the cries of their half-brothers crippling.

  The press of bodies was becoming ridiculous. I lunged, thrusting two large shadows out of my way, my skills enhanced by the program, and then I grabbed the shoulder of one and used the leverage to spin upward and plant two feet in a massive kick to the chest of another, throwing him back and bowling over another dozen behind him.

  “Vera!” Driscoll cried, and I risked a glance behind me to see him fall beneath the press of shadow bodies. His hands clawed out as they pressed in on him until I could only see one hand, clutching at grass, dirt, shadows, anything it encountered. I pushed towards him, throwing shadows out of my way, but others poured into the gaps until I was further away than I began.

  Out of my way! I screamed in my mind, forcing my way through. OUT OF MY WAY!

  Shadow bodies parted, scrambling over one another’s shoulders and heads in a mad panic as if something were lighting their heels on fire. A path opened from me to Driscoll, clearing around his body and the bodies of my half-shadow friends.

  BACK!

  They pushed further backwards, and I gaped with amazement. That I could communicate with them was thrilling, although not entirely unexpected. Since I could hear the hum of their voices I had thought that perhaps I would eventually be able to pick out a way to speak, but I had never expected to be obeyed. They had obeyed me like I was a god to them. The shock was still reverberating in my mind when a single shadow stepped into the cleared path, standing between me and the frightened shadows.

  He spoke to me through the link, but it wasn’t speech. He sent the idea to me somehow and I understood it in my mind, but I still could pick out no words from the rushing-river sound of their communication.

  What do you want here with us? Your coming is trouble. Go on your way quickly.

  I want to be on my way as quickly as you want me gone ,I sent to him, I need access to the colony beyond here.

  Your kind kills. Death. Pain. Horror. If you live then death. Pain. Horror. Can’t be allowed. Can’t comply.

  I’ll promise no violence if you let me through. We want only to be free of this planet.

  Free. Whole. Released is what we want. You must all go. Go now.

  We’ll go as quickly as we can, only please let us leave.

  A pact. Promise. Hope. No blood shed. Violence. Betrayal. And we will leave you to go. She will come to ensure. She will keep your word for you.

  Agreed, I said.

  Go. Be rid of you. Final peace. Peace. Sleep.

  It was confusing, but I seemed to be getting the drift. At least we all agreed on one thing. We all wanted the humans to be gone off of Baldric.

  I walked forward, and he stood aside to let me haul Driscoll back on his feet. The Baldric Three were gaping at me, hands lowered to their sides. I wondered how much they had heard. Their guns were still on the ground.

  Driscoll had his gun up and tracking the shadows as soon as he was on his feet.

  “Gun down. No shooting,” I said to Driscoll, hurriedly putting a hand to his trigger finger. “I’ve brokered a temporary truce but it will be over the moment we shed blood, or are violent, or something. The exact rules aren’t super clear.”

  “Of course not,” Driscoll said, trying for his usual cynical tone, but his eyes blazed with something else. Hope? It looked akin to hero worship, but that made no sense. Maybe he was enormously impressed by xeno-communication.

  The Baldric Three were on their feet and they grouped up behind Driscoll almost unconsciously, they were smiling. The aliens must leave a strange impression on people. Maybe I was immune because of my implant.

  “Come on,” I said, trying to hide my confusion, and leading them through the narrow path between the press of shadows.

  Not a single one made a move to attack us. They stood perfectly still, immobile and straight, like they were standing at parade rest. It was incredibly eerie. I walked slowly at first, being sure not to touch them or provoke them, but as we progressed and the shadows seemed to go on and on I sped up without meaning to, till I was almost jogging, I was so anxious to escape their claustrophobic ranks. The sheer volume of them was enormous. Their river of thought continued to rumble and from the depths of it a recurring thought rolled through, She comes.

  I didn’t think they meant me. Their ultimate leader must be female. She was the one who was going to enforce our promise, and now she was coming. I was very nervous about what that meant. I wanted to be at the colony before she arrived. Maybe we could convince the ship to send a shuttle right to us, and we would never have to meet the terrible leader of these shadows.

  I drew myself to my full tiny height and tried my best not to pull on my shortened hair. The shadows loomed on both sides, their semi-translucent bodies almost humming with energy as they spoke together in the roiling stream of projected thought. They varied in height and size, some more human, and some less, but all completely focused on us. They were dressed in varied ways. The humans were in shadowy lab coats, skinsuits, and uniforms. The aliens were in swathed fabric that covered them from nose to knees and wrapped around their heads like turbans. They held no weapons. I wondered about their shadow lives. Did they eat? Did they need to? Could they hold solid objects? I couldn’t tell from their endless forms. Why hadn’t I checked before? Oh yes, I had been focused on survival.


  I heard a gasp from Driscoll behind me and I immediately saw why. Sammy stood in the forward ranks lining our path, or at least his shadow did. It stared straight ahead, vibrating like the others and looking at a point somewhere in the mid distance.

  “Sammy?” Driscoll said, in tones of horror. “Is that you?”

  Sammy said nothing.

  “Are you ok, lad?”

  Still nothing.

  “Driscoll,” I warned, “Best to leave it.”

  I flushed. Sammy had been under my leadership when he was taken. He was my responsibility, and it was my fault that he was a shadow now. I had to do better. I’d failed in all my responsibilities. I must do better.

  The weight of an empire was settling on my shoulders as I walked the ghoulish gauntlet. It was time to take up the mantle of the Matsumotos. They had rejected me, but I did not dare reject them. There was already too much blood on our hands.

  Driscoll’s face was lined with sorrow and guilt. He stopped and searched his friend’s face doggedly as he passed, seeming reluctant to leave him.

  “Remember that time on Nightshade? We stayed all week at that fishing shack. You caught a Night Snapper so big it almost sunk us. I told you it wasn’t worth hauling home, but you never let anything beat you...”

  He reached forward, like he was going to grip his friend’s hand.

  “Driscoll,” I said gently.

  He shook himself and frowned, but he started to walk again, watching Sammy over his shoulder like he thought his friend would join him.

  How many shadows were there? The minutes ticked by as we walked between their ranks, and still there were more. They seemed endless, and as they had said, this was only a part of their army.

  I was beginning to fear this walk of death would never end when we broke, finally, through their ranks. The press of bodies eased as quickly as it had swelled and I gulped down quick breaths of over-oxygenated air. It had never tasted so bitter.

  The trees swayed gently before us, but their innocent limbs seemed like reaching arms now, and their plum leaves seemed too much like dried blood. I felt a chill that had nothing to do with the cooling air or the sterile white light. Baldric was not our home.

  “It’s time to leave this yellow-dust-ball,” I said.

  Driscoll was the only one who laughed, and it sounded forced, but the confidence in my voice lent me courage and I picked up the pace, refusing to turn and watch the shadows. We just had to keep from panicking and running for a little longer. I had a chilling fear that if we ran all bets would be off. They seemed to be the types to enjoy the chase.

  We were all breathing a little too quickly when we finally caught sight of the colony. I thought I’d feel relieved when I finally saw it, but nothing could have been further from the truth.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  In fairness, I had been unconscious the last time I arrived here and also when we left, so this was my first time seeing the colony. It was a ramshackle lump of modern buildings rising up in the center of a surrounding ceramicrete wall. They were in poor repair, which was little wonder with the intense turnover and poor quality colonists that had been marooned here over the years. Overgrown foliage showed singe marks at the top of the wall where a spiral of wire was electrified. It reminded me a run-down ghetto in the worst of cities. Unfortunately that wall, despite its ill-repair, still made it impregnable.

  Spiralling out of the center of the compound was a thick pillar of black smoke. Orange flames tangled through the pillar and licked at the surrounding buildings. Something bad was going on in the Blackwatch colony. I just hoped it wasn’t affecting the satellite’s slaved terminal.

  I studied the door, wondering how to get their attention.

  “Do we knock?” Driscoll asked from behind me. I was starting to get nervous about how frequently his words matched my thoughts. What had I come to that I was thinking in the same patterns as one of the Empire’s worst terrorists?

  “There’s a pad to communicate beside the door,” Kitsano suggested.

  “I’m guessing that’s not how you got in last time,” I said.

  “No, we didn’t, but the other way involves killing people, and since we just promised we wouldn’t...” she let her voice trail off.

  I nodded. We definitely didn’t want bloodshed.

  I led the way to the main door, tapped the communications pad and waited. Two cameras swivelled to view me. I resisted the urge to scratch my scar and stood motionless instead, waiting for a response.

  “They seem to be preoccupied,” Driscoll said from my left shoulder.

  “They do,” I agreed.

  “Maybe we should try the other route,” he said.

  “Maybe we can afford to wait a few more moments,” I said, mimicking his cool tone.

  The minutes stretched out. Inside the wall the fire continued unabated.

  “Maybe their hands are too full for visitors,” Driscoll said, as the unmistakable zip of a nettlegun sang out.

  “Someone’s having a party in there, and we’re here to crash it,” I said, still cool on the outside, even though I was frustrated and desperate to get to the terminal on the inside.

  I felt a shift in the world around me, but I didn’t need to turn around. The communication pad had a gleaming, reflective surface. I could see the forest behind me. I saw that the white tree boles were almost invisible, they were so blocked by ranks of shadows .

  I was finding it difficult to hold my ground, but we were surrounded – the sounds of a civil uprising were coming from the settlement before us, a hostile army was gathering behind us, and the Baldric Three had fallen to their knees again trying to block it all out. Like everything in my life, this situation was stacked in the usual Vera fashion – overwhelmingly against me.

  I chewed on the inside of my lip and then tapped the pad again, hoping to convey my annoyance to whoever was listening.

  After long minutes, the door mechanism whirred and the seal broke with a gasp. The two doors wheezed as they separated, slowly opening a gap up between them.

  Standing in the gap was Ian McIsaac. At his back were four others in our same skinsuits, holding nettleguns. Their suits were dirty and ash-covered. One was Ch’ng, and the look he gave me was a mix of hostility and respect. The hostility I was used to. The respect was a surprise though a welcome one.

  Ian shot a look of confusion toward the Baldric Three, and a look of satisfaction to me. I didn’t have time to enjoy that look. He noticed the shadows in the tree line behind us last of all. He cursed.

  “Can you never just come alone, Vera?” he asked, frustration and anger the top notes in his voice.

  “No one ever believes me when I tell them I want my space,” I said wryly.

  He smiled, every trace of the emotional journey we’d taken since leaving Capricornia was erased in what was truly an expression of friendship. Maybe seeing me hauled off by shadows after my brain was almost carved open had removed his hatred.

  “It’s good to see you,” he said.

  I felt my own smile warm at the look in his beautiful blue eyes.

  “Don’t worry, I’ve made a temporary truce with them,” I said gesturing to the shadows. “We’ll be safe until we get off this planet. And I have a plan for that, too.”

  “Of course you do,” he said, and his smile was so warm I could have basked in it for hours.

  Our gazes locked, radiating warmth and happiness for a split second. My heart opened with the warmth of forgiveness and comradery blossomed again where there had only been bare bitterness before.

  “Ian,” I said, holding out a hand.

  “You don’t need to say it,” he began, but whatever else he was going to say was cut off by a throaty yell.

  “For Baldric!”

  I spun in surprise. Roberta leapt up from her crouch, something small and square in one hand, and her nettlegun, still with its strap over one shoulder, brandished in the other.

  Something in her expression told me I should b
e afraid at almost the same moment that I felt a stab of pain through my skull. I fell to the ground, clutching my head.

  “Did you think I wouldn’t keep this?” She said, and her hand opened enough to show the device Dr. Daniels had connected to my implant. “Death to the Matsumotos!”

  “No!”

  I didn’t know if that was me screaming or Ian. I tried to stand and fight, but my implant was stalled, unable to hear my commands, and my fight programs fizzled out. My own physical body was also frozen, the intense pain too much for it to process my brain’s orders.

  Ian leapt in front of me just as Roberta fired her nettlegun. He fell just as fast, slumping on top of me. My hands dropped from my head, clutching him instead. I was in too much agony to speak, and his eyes were already glassy, his chest a shredded mess of cloth and flesh.

  Roberta’s nettlegun was swinging towards me, and I couldn’t even close my eyes. The pain had stolen all function from me.

  Just as I was sure she was about to fire, blood spurted from her neck, coating the ground, and her head flopped loosely as she fell to join us. The nettlegun didn’t even fire. Behind her Driscoll stood, holding a bloody knife. He reached down, scooped up the black device and flicked a button. The pain stopped. I blinked.

  Driscoll looked me in the eye, and then quick as lightning he dropped the device and stomped on it. Crushing it into a thousand pieces. My mouth fell open.

  “I thought you hated me.”

  “I thought he hated you,” he said, gesturing to Ian.

  “Only for the last few days.” I said. Hot tears formed in my eyes and splashed onto Ian’s face as I gently closed his eyes. “Before that...”

  I started to say something to mourn my prodigal friend. “I always thought that if you went deep enough you’d find that Ian was a really good person. I can’t believe-”