Chasing the Shadows (Sentinels of the Galaxy Book 2)

by Maria V. Snyder

  The edges of the blackness pulse as if something inside it is straining to break through. Another wave of green light crests. It’s almost as if the Warriors are pushing against the shadow-blobs. Maybe fighting them or protecting us. After a few more waves, the blackness stills. The edges sharpen into a rectangle.

  The blackness dilutes and it’s like peering through a window. And I spot— I slam my hand down on the Warrior. All the green lights from the Warriors in the pit go out except the seven statues around the gap. The blackness shrinks to fist-sized and winks out of existence.

  “What happened, Lawrence?” Beau asks.

  “I saw…”

  “Don’t keep us in suspense.”

  Unwilling to influence them, I ask, “Did anyone else see anything inside the black rectangle?”

  “Just more blackness, but I thought seeing that was exciting enough,” Mom says.

  I scan their faces; everyone agrees with my mother. They also haven’t moved since I ended the experiment.

  “What did you see?” Beau asks me.

  “I saw the back of a person, standing in another Warrior pit.”

  I can’t say they didn’t believe me, because the last time I claimed I saw something that they couldn’t, I ended up being right. Yet there’s a general sense of disbelief.

  “Was the person human?” Dad asks.

  “Yes.”

  “Then why did you turn off the lights?”

  “Because he could have been one of Jarren’s looters.” And it was a knee-jerk reaction.

  Silence.

  “Let’s say that the blackness is a portal to another Warrior Pit,” Mom says.

  “That’s a super huge leap, Ming.”

  “I’m speculating. It would explain how the looters have been getting around without using a space ship.”

  “Unless there’s no air in there. Or if it leads to an alternate dimension,” Dad says. “At this point we’ve no idea.”

  “What was with the light show?” Elese asks.

  “Could be an energy source,” Mom says.

  “That’s ridiculous, we haven’t found anything inside the Warriors that would suggest they’re capable of doing…well, anything!” Dad shoves his gun back into the holder on his belt.

  “There’s hearts inside the Warriors,” I say. Recalling the sequence of events, I try to pinpoint when the lights flared. “I think the HoLFs might have tried to get through and the Warriors stopped them, maybe even helped to create a safe passage.”

  “Did you see ghosts?” Niall asks.

  The ghosts in the factory seemed to keep the shadow-blobs away when we were attacked. “No, it was too bright, but I sensed the struggle.”

  “This is all pure conjecture,” Dad says. “And once again, we’re no closer to any answers. We need to bring the astrophysicists here and let them figure out what the hell is going on.”

  “Maybe we should open another intact pit and check if there are boot prints there,” Mom suggests.

  “Not without Officer Radcliff’s permission,” Beau says. “I suspect I’m already in trouble for allowing this deviation from protocol.”

  And I suspect we’re all going to be in trouble. From their queasy expressions, so do my parents. Perhaps we can blame gold fever.

  “All right.” Mom returns the pulse gun and her flashlight to her belt. “We’ll proceed as normal in this pit and won’t do any more testing of the alien glyphs. Spencer, send word of the…glowing symbols to Dr. Carson and request that she and Dr. Zhang come out here. Ara, please turn the rest of these off before the techs return.”

  “My team, as you were,” Beau orders.

  Before Niall heads to the ladder, he gives me a significant look. It promises that we have much to discuss later and he’s not happy. I go around and turn off the Warriors. Now that the excitement is past, the ache in my arm comes to life and my knuckles sting.

  “You okay?” Beau asks.

  I roll my shoulder. “It’ll go away.”

  “Did anything escape that portal?”

  “No. The pit’s still safe.” More than safe. Protected. Huh. Another idea pops into my head. One of these is going to kill me if my colleagues don’t do it first. “If we relocate a bunch of these Warriors to our destroyed pits, they might keep the HoLFs at bay.”

  Beau sighs. “There are so many things wrong with that sentence.” He rubs his face. “Okay, I’ll bite. If we did that, would you go into the pits and risk your life?”

  Would I? I glance around at the imposing figures of the Warriors. “Yes, I would.”

  “Good to know.”

  I finish my etchings without causing another mind-blowing discovery. Beau goes topside and I resume my duties while thinking about the glowing glyphs and the portal—yes, it was a portal. I know what I saw. Would the Warriors in Pit 21 glow if the magician returned? Or do the glyphs only glow when opening a portal from this side? The person’s back was turned to the portal. If the lights in their pit turned on, you would think they would have spun to look to see who’s coming through. Unless they didn’t have time. Either way, I hope that person isn’t working for Jarren.

  Elese calls down the thirty-minute warning, jarring me from my thoughts. Planet Yulin turns on its axis once every twenty-nine Earth hours. It has enough of a tilt that right now the sun is up for thirteen hours and down for sixteen. Inside the base, the difference between Yulin and Earth isn’t noticeable, but out here, it’s…strange. Good thing we don’t start right when the sun rises, or else it’d be a very long day down in that pit.

  Niall is waiting for me when I exit. We stay until Dad seals the hatch before heading to the mess tent.

  After a couple minutes of silence, Niall says rather gruffly, “I can’t believe Beau authorized that test. What the hell was he thinking?”

  “I suspect he wasn’t,” I say.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Excitement is contagious. We all got a case of gold fever.”

  “Gold fever?” Niall lifts an eyebrow.

  “It happened on Earth a long time ago. They discovered gold and everyone went crazy trying to mine it. The moral of the story is they made bad decisions.”

  “Over gold?”

  “Yes. And that’s what happened today. We were blinded by the light. Except you—the sensible one.”

  Niall grunts.

  “You gotta admit it was super exciting.” I do a little skip.

  “It was super dangerous. My father is going to explode.”

  My good mood sours. We reach the mess tent, fill our plates with…what appears to be the exact same menu as last night—lovely—and find an empty spot to sit. We eat in silence. Halfway through the meal I remember the etchings and pull them from my pocket.

  Spreading them out on the table, I say, “At least we can figure out what planet these symbols represent.”

  Niall studies them. “I wish I’d brought my sketchbook. Guess we’ll have to wait until we get back to determine which one.”

  “My mom should have the files on her portable.”

  “But there’s no terminal for the Q-net.”

  “We don’t need it. Remember the colored-octagon project?”

  “The one we never finished.”

  “Details, details.” I wave a hand. “My point is we kept the data from that project on Mom’s portable and didn’t send it to DES because we suspected Jarren was monitoring our files.” Little did we know he was also blocking them.

  “Your mom has to report to my father about today. What are the chances of your mother letting us borrow her portable?”

  “Are you going to counter everything I say?”

  “I am the sensible one.”

  “No, you’re being Mr. Negative. We’ll get nothing if we don’t ask. Besides, we only need the portable for a minute or two.”

  We finish dinner and head to the command center. As soon as I enter, I get the parental once-over. Yes, I’m fine. No, the arm doesn’t hurt.

 
When they’re satisfied, my mother says, “I’m glad you’re here. I need you to clarify a few things for me about the…incident this afternoon.”

  Niall gives me a smug look.

  “I’m happy to help, Mom. In fact, if you let me borrow your portable for a couple minutes, I can tell you what planet those symbols represent.” Now it’s my turn to give Niall a smug smile.

  “You can do that?” Not waiting for an answer, she hands me her portable.

  “Yes.” I bypass her files and access the ones Niall and I made for each pit on Planets Xi’an and Anqing. We didn’t have time to finish the others. Once I reach the colored octagon files, I realize it’s going to take me longer than I thought. I need to look at every single pit until I find the one that matches.

  I bring up the first pit and glance at the etchings, comparing the two. Nope. On to pit two. Nope. Pit three. No. Four. Nada. Five. I wish I could access my Q-cluster. It would have this done in— The portable’s screen blurs and is replaced by the Q-net’s vast landscape as if I’d just inserted my entanglers. I didn’t. In fact, they’re in my pack, in my tent. And the closest terminal is over twenty kilometers away. My Q-cluster pulls in the file I’d just been looking at. I swallow as it takes over comparing the symbols.

  How I reached the Q-net from the middle of the desert is…I’ve no words. I swallow again. The cluster matches the symbols in seconds. It’s Planet Dongguan—one of the closed Warrior planets, which means no one is living in the research base, therefore, no one should be in the pits.

  A strange spinning sensation causes my stomach to flutter as I’m disconnected from the Q-cluster. My vision once again focuses on the portable’s screen. Its edges dig into my palm.

  “Ara? Something wrong?” Mom asks.

  Oh yes, lots of things. Like the fact your daughter has massive brain damage. I draw in a deep breath. “It’s Planet Dongguan.”

  My parents and Niall are quick to come to the same conclusions. Someone is living on Dongguan without permission, or the pit I saw isn’t on Dongguan but another planet, or I really didn’t see a person in a pit—I’m okay with that one, especially after accessing my Q-cluster from a portable. A portable kilometers away from a terminal!

  Another thought occurs to me. What if I tapped into a part of my brain that can do these things really fast like a Q-cluster? I’ve heard you only access ten percent of your brain’s power—not sure from where. What if I can use all of my brain? That would be cool. So I could figure out what one hundred and ninety-seven times forty-three is in seconds. Uh. It’s… If I round it up to two hundred and times it by forty that’s…er…eight thousand, then I need—a new theory. ’Cause that one’s wrong.

  “…Ara?” Mom asks.

  “Huh?”

  “Are you finished with the portable?”

  “Oh. Yeah.” I give it back to her. Everyone’s staring at me in concern. Time to get the focus off me. “You said you have questions about today?”

  “Yes.” Mom asks Niall and I to clarify what we each saw, felt, and how long it took for the blackness to go from a fist to a two-meter tall rectangle.

  After we finish, I take a quick shower, and fill in for Elese while Niall relieves Beau. My thoughts are a chaotic tumble of all that happened today so Niall surprises me when he grabs my arm before we part.

  “You saw something in the files. What was it?” he asks.

  “I…” Damn, he’s too observant and I can’t come up with a good answer fast enough.

  “Mouse.” His tone is growly.

  “It’s not what I saw, but…” He’s not going to believe me.

  “But what?”

  “It’s…I…” I sigh then blurt it out. “I can access the Q-net without a terminal or tangs.”

  He rocks back on his heels as if I just slapped him.

  “Go ahead, tell me it’s crazy. It’s impossible. That I have significant brain damage.” I’ve joked about this in the past. However, I’m no longer being flippant. No, now I’m terrified.

  “Sounds like you already covered the basics.” He pauses. “Do you think it has to do with touching that heart?”

  I consider. “No, or it would have happened sooner.”

  “When did it start?”

  “After I fell asleep while worming.”

  “But that shouldn’t—”

  “I know! I’ve been telling myself that for the last ten days.”

  “The migraine.”

  I nod. “At least I don’t get headaches anymore.” Small mercies, but still…what else can go wrong? The answer pops into my head like the magician. “Are you going to break up with me?”

  “What? No. Why would you think that?”

  “’Cause I’m a freak of nature. ’Cause of all the problems I cause like turning on the Warriors. Although that was an accident, but I’m the only reason the symbols glowed. ’Cause I can’t follow simple instructions. Don’t you want a normal girlfriend?”

  “I hate to break this to you, Mouse, but you were never ever, not in a million years normal.” He moves his hand down my arm and entwines his fingers in mine. “If I wanted normal, I wouldn’t be with you.”

  In a strange way, that’s really sweet. “But…the Warriors and the Q-net. It’s all…too much for one person to deal with.”

  “It is.” Niall releases my hand.

  A crack races through my heart. I knew it was too much for him.

  Instead of stepping away, he pulls me in for a hug. “But you don’t have to deal with it alone. I’m not going anywhere.”

  I melt against him. Best boyfriend ever.

  “You know what you need to do,” Niall says.

  I tilt my head back. “Kiss you?”

  A smile. “We’re in uniform.”

  “We’re hugging.”

  “I’m providing emotional support. Which also includes the advice to inform your parents of what’s been going on.” When I grumble, he adds, “Face it, Mouse, if I can figure out something is wrong, they probably already suspect.”

  “Yeah, but they’re distracted. Plus this’ll just add to their worries.”

  He gives me the you’re-making-excuses look. Mr. Sensible in all his glory.

  “How about I tell them when we get back to the base?” I ask. “I’ll stay away from the portables and won’t connect with the Q-net until I talk to them.”

  “You’re just delaying the inevitable.”

  “Other than requiring me to stay disconnected, what else can they do? Send me to the base for more brain scans? What happens to the dig then?”

  Niall presses his lips together. “I guess you have a point.”

  I wisely keep from gloating. Instead, I promise to fess up once we’re home.

  As I’m making my rounds in the pit the next day, I encounter my parents at the base of the ladder. They’re both huddled over a portable. Because of my vow not to tangle with any tech, I veer away.

  “He can’t do that.” Mom’s tone is harsh.

  Uh oh. I slow and glance over my shoulder.

  “Technically he can,” Dad says.

  “There’s no danger, Spencer.”

  “You can’t be sure of that. What’s to stop someone from Dongguan from just…popping in here?”

  “The laws of physics.”

  “Tell that to those boot prints. Come on, Ming, you know he’s right.”

  “He’s—” Mom spots Beau, who is climbing down the ladder.

  Beau is pale and his brow is creased with worry. “Dr. Daniels, I’ve orders from Officer Radcliff to cease all activities in Pit 21 and return to base as soon as possible.”

  Thirteen

  2522:216

  My mom faces Beau with her hands on her hips. Uh oh, I brace for her to blast the poor guy—because Radcliff is the one who ordered us all back to the base, not Beau.

  “No,” Mom says to Beau. “We’re not leaving. We’ve only been here two days and—”

  “It’s not up for discussion, Dr. Daniels. Tell your
team to pack up.”

  I give Beau major credit for standing up to my mother. She glares at him and he stares right on back.

  “The security team is welcome to leave. We’re staying,” Mom says in her don’t-argue-with-me tone.

  “We can come back.” Dad appeals to Mom. “We’ll bring the astrophysicists and more security.”

  Mom rounds on him. “Do you really think Tace is going to allow that?”

  My father looks downright grim. “He’s going to have to. This is our only way to get answers.”

  Or more questions. Remembering the swell of lights and the strange black rectangle, I rub my arm.

  “Fine,” Mom spits out. “But we’re coming back. If Tace won’t agree to sending security with us, we’ll bring all the techs instead. Most of them have been training with pulse guns.”

  Which might be effective against the magician, but not shadow-blobs. However, I don’t remind her of them or she might change her mind and stay. And I don’t want to be caught in the middle if she orders me to remain with her.

  The rest of the day is spent packing up the camp and enduring lots of grumbling from the techs. My dad rigs the floodlights so he can turn all of them on from the surface when we return. Smart.

  Beau, Niall, and I switch off the lights, starting with the furthest set and moving toward the ladder. When I reach the center, I pause. If the magician returns, he’ll see our footprints and the big floodlight. Hmmm. It might be a bad thing if he’s working for Jarren. So I smooth out the sand in and around the center, trying to make it appear…natural. It’s not perfect—far from it, but it’s…better. Then I move the light deeper into the Warriors.

  We finish and stand at the bottom of the ladder. There’s enough sunlight so it’s not completely dark.

  “Anything?” Beau asks me.

  “No HoLFs.”

  He peers at me, then nods at Niall. “You go first.”

  Niall mounts the ladder, then Beau, and I’m last. I take a moment to wonder if we’ll be back. I hope so.

  After I arrive at the surface, the ladder is pulled out and retracted to its smaller size—basically Niall pushes one end and Beau the other until the ladder’s only a couple rungs long. The action reminds me of crinkling space, which brings two distant points close together. And then I wonder if the black rectangle that appeared in the center of the pit is a form of crinkled space.