“Activate every camera on the ship, all passive ID scans, and every motion sensor.” Halver was on the main bridge, only separated from the exterior security office by a solid, blast-shielded wall. Lockdown measures meant they were speaking via screens and cameras instead of in person. “Make sure every security protocol is active and human eyes are constantly sweeping all recorded footage. Facial rec matched to ID scans and fucking DNA if the system can get it.”
“I know the procedure, sir,” Cira assured him, infusing her words with false confidence. “If there are any developments, you and the captain will be the first to know.”
“Watch our backs, Ensign. The situation is changing faster than I like.”
“Aye, sir.” With a final nod, Cira severed the connection and got to work. Thankfully, what she desperately wanted to do was, this time, exactly what she’d been ordered to do.
It only took a few swipes and verbal commands to activate the cameras embedded all over the ship. Every hallway. All public spaces. The cargo holds. Only bathrooms, living suites, and the deep maintenance shafts were blanks. If this chaos stretched on much longer, though, Cira had no doubt the captain would order cameras and sensors installed in all those places, too.
Once she set the programs running, she focused on the cameras in medical. There were six in the main bay and an additional four in other sections. Cira brought them all up and spread the images across every display she had. With a slight adjustment of her position, she could easily see everything happening in the med bay.
She almost wished she hadn’t looked.
Farran Badri, the chief of security, had Riston pinned to the wall. Erryla and Meida stood just off Farran’s shoulders like predators converging on prey. Ze cowered, shoulders curled in and head down. Despite knowing how strong Riston was, Cira wasn’t sure how long ze could withstand this assault. Eventually, Farran would find the right pressure point. She might start by threatening to throw zem out the air lock and into the embrace of space, but she’d move on soon. Threatening to withhold medical help from whoever was injured might be enough to crack Riston’s resolve. Then again, Farran might not get that chance.
Dyaus—Shadow—was lying on the operating table already, his clothes torn and bloody and his body too still. Blood, vibrantly bright against the room’s white surfaces, dripped from a torn strip of cloth and pooled on the floor. Adrienn was working frantically, zir hair covered by a black cap and blood splattered across zir uniform. The orders ze must’ve been shouting didn’t come through Cira’s speakers, but she could see from the displays on the walls that the procedure wasn’t working. Agonizing realization settled into her bones.
Shadow was dying.
Station Security Logs
Gaivai Station, Casseta System
Anonymous Letter Submitted to Station Chief Domis Jake
Terra-Sol date 3812.126
This morning, fifteen children escaped from a facility on your station. Level twelve, corridor sixteen, suite 345. It looks like a clinic from the outside, and I think it’s actually used as one most days, but the back rooms are different. There’s a team of doctors doing experiments on orphaned children there.
They took me from the processing center before I could be placed on a transport. My parents were dead, and I didn’t have other family, so no one noticed when I went missing. They picked the others the same way, but I don’t know if they got them from the same place. I also don’t know if you’ll ever figure that out, even if you investigate. It’s hard to track people who barely exist and aren’t being missed by anyone.
I don’t know what they’re trying to learn or create, but I do know I couldn’t get everyone out. There are a lot of kids left in that place. Chances are they won’t be there for long. It’s not like the “doctors” won’t notice our disappearance. They’ll either move or eliminate the others soon. I’ve told you what’s happening and where to go. Now, it’s up to you to save them.
Don’t look for me. You won’t find me, and I’ve already told you everything I know.
Sincerely,
A Shadow
File Note by Chief Domis Jake
Terra-Sol date 3812.129
Twenty-three children between the approximate ages of eight and sixteen were found exactly where this letter claimed they would be. There were signs of an earlier struggle and the means for holding a seventeen more, assuming the facility was at full capacity before the alleged escape this morning. The ones we found described their would-be rescuer as a boy between twelve and fourteen with brown skin, dark hair, and a quick mind. So far, no one matching that description in the correct age range has been spotted. Given that we traced the source of the letter to a public terminal near the docks, I’m not the only one assuming “Shadow” is already long gone.
Chapter Fifteen
Riston
Terra-Sol date 3814.256
Riston winced as the security chief’s hands tightened on zir arms, pressing deeper into the bruises that had already been squeezed onto zir skin. The grip was so strong zir feet barely touched the floor. It was a surprise her hands hadn’t yet gone for zir throat, especially since ze couldn’t keep zir gaze from straying toward the room they’d taken Shadow into. Adrienn and a team of nurses had rushed in. No one had yet come out.
“What’s happening to the other ships?” Farran growled the question at zem. Again. “Where are they?”
“I don’t know.” Riston answered, but ze didn’t expect to be believed.
“This isn’t getting us anywhere,” the captain muttered.
Farran dropped Riston so suddenly zir knees buckled at the impact. Only the sudden pressure of her forearm under zir chin kept zem from collapsing. Zir eyes went wide. For the first time in several minutes, ze looked straight at zir captors. Air, suddenly scarce, only trickled into zir lungs and zir hands automatically came up to grip Farran’s arm. Ze didn’t bother struggling. If time was up and the final blow was coming, all ze could do was watch as it landed.
“Give me time, Captain,” Farran said, her face so close to Riston’s that her breath was a hot blast against zir face. “I’ll get answers.”
“Erryla,” Meida murmured.
The captain’s attention, though, was on Riston. Until a door somewhere else in medical opened.
Immediately, Erryla and Meida turned toward the sound. Only Farran remained still, her broad body blocking Riston’s view of whatever was happening beyond. But ze wanted—needed—to see. It sounded like the movement was coming from the same room they’d taken Shadow into. Then a nurse walked into Riston’s field of vision.
Their uniform was sprayed with blood.
“News?” Errlya asked, an order implicit in the question.
Farran’s arm pressed tighter against zir throat, but Riston didn’t take zir eyes off the nurse, desperate for the answer to that question.
Their mouth opened…and then closed. They shook their head and said, “Not yet,” before they hurried to collect supplies from a cabinet and then rushed back into the operating room.
But to Riston, with the look on their face and the blood on their uniform, “not yet” sounded far too much like “it’s already over.”
“Shut off external access to the video in medical,” Erryla ordered Meida. “I want to figure out what happened here before wild stories start spreading through the ship.”
Meida strode quickly toward Adrienn’s office. She was barely out of sight before the captain gestured an order to Farran and Riston found zirself moving. Each woman grabbed one of zir arms and dragged zem across medical. Ze didn’t fight it, not even when they shoved zem into the quarantine bay so hard ze slammed into the opposite wall. Ze didn’t fight it because it didn’t matter. If Shadow didn’t make it, Riston had already failed.
Excerpt from Destruction and Deconstruction: A Look at the Soul of Humanity
by Dr. Padraigin Ó Catháin
Published on Terra-Sol date 3799.239
Although we have always been
able to rationalize
our tendency toward violence—or, in certain cases, ritualize it and transform it into something convincingly righteous—it remains that humanity has excelled at violence against ourselves and our habitat for as long as we’ve existed. I would argue it was our first area of expertise. Numerous philosophers, theologians, and scientists have proposed ways to end the epidemic of devastation humanity constantly spreads; none
have worked, not one in centuries. Just look at the
theories from pre-superluminal drive essays and books. They believed that once humanity was finally able to expand into the vastness of space, we would realize how truly limitless the galaxy’s resources, opportunities, and discoveries were. Instead, our biggest achievement in the thousand years since we first spread beyond the Sol system is war—the longest running, farthest reaching,
most destructive war humanity has ever waged. Even
after centuries, there seems to be no end in sight.
What I cannot understand is why.
We slaughter each other for temporary ownership and transient power, for the dubious honor of the memories we’ll leave behind us when we finally, inevitably die, and yet through all this, the stars burn on. The universe that made us will not miss us when we’re gone.
Recoil
Official PSSC Internal Correspondence
From: Captain Erryla Antares, PCCS Novis
To: Pax Class Governing Council and PSSC Control
Terra-Sol date 3814.256
Message Status: Send Pending
Today at 1751 hours, we became aware of trespassers on board Pax Novis when two people, one gravely injured, used the emergency override code to gain access to deck five and the medical bay. Although both have ID chips that scan with clean, unflagged identities, neither one is a sanctioned crew member of this ship or a Pax citizen. The ship’s security systems flagged them as intruders, and we have been at high alert since that moment.
Lieutenant Adrienn Naess, Chief Medical Officer, did zir best to save one, but ze was unsuccessful. The injured trespasser died from internal injuries at 1837 hours. The second trespasser is currently being held in the med bay’s quarantine ward, and medical has been locked down for all nonessential personnel.
The two intruders are young, the elder somewhere around seventeen, and the younger (now deceased) closer to fifteen by our best guess. Despite their ages, it is possible these two are part of the group we had suspected of sabotaging the ship. I do not believe either ID chip has given us their real information. The trespassers’ provided names and histories are attached, but so are their genetic scans and full facial profiles. If you can discover their real identities and connect them to anyone else, it might give the Pax Special Operations Teams an actual lead to follow.
Please see the attached reports and video logs from the ship for additional details. While awaiting orders, Novis will be going into a level one lockdown and operating on emergency shifts. A deck-by-deck search is ongoing for both physical sabotage and any additional stowaways. So far, it’s turned up nothing. We are already pushing for Paxis Station at best possible speed, but it will be another two weeks before we’re even within reach of long-range sensor arrays. If assistance is in our area, send them to intercept us as quickly as possible.
Chapter Sixteen
Riston
Terra-Sol date 3814.256
Despite the anxiety buzzing through zir body like an electric current, Riston didn’t let zirself pace the long, narrow room. Instead, ze traced every corner, edge, and curve with zir eyes.
The room was designed as a quarantine bay, but Riston wasn’t sure if it had ever been used for its intended purpose. Or at all. A wide archway divided the bay from the rest of medical, and at first glance, there was nothing to keep Riston from running away. That, however, was only because force shields couldn’t be seen by human eyes until the privacy filter had been turned opaque. Ze almost smiled at the thought. Privacy, or even the illusion of it, was probably the last thing they wanted to give Riston.
Four beds were spaced evenly along the rear wall. That wall was almost entirely display capable, ready and waiting to glow with pulse rates and diagnostic charts and whatever else the medical team demanded, but now the screens were a blank, shiny white. A decontamination chamber was tucked into one corner, and supply cabinets were secreted everywhere else, each of them clearly labeled. Seemingly, they contained everything crew trapped in quarantine might need, including clothes. Clean, bloodless clothes.
Riston stared at the clothes cabinet for a long time before finally looking down at zir own body. Drying blood—Shadow’s blood—caked zir hands, and zir shirt was stuck to zir stomach. Ze was a literal stain on the clean room, and ze wanted nothing in that moment more than to strip, scrub raw, and enshroud zirself in fresh cloth because the control ze had cloaked zirself in was cracking and shattering to pieces around zem.
Breath hitching, ze gripped the front of zir tainted shirt and tore it off, ignoring the tears filling zir eyes. Whatever happened from here, whatever punishment they delivered, it wouldn’t be worse because ze stole more clothes. No one would care about that, not now.
Guilt still ate at zem as ze let the decontamination shower’s sonic rinse scrub blood, sweat, and tears off zir skin. Ze found ration bars in the same compartment as the clothes, but ze didn’t touch those. Instead, as soon as ze was dressed, ze stood against the wall and waited. Ze waited, and remembered, and hoped, and feared, and fought back tears still burning at the corners of zir eyes, and then kept on waiting.
An hour passed, maybe more, and monotony began to smother the sharpest edges of zir anxiety. The sound of voices after seemingly interminable stillness grabbed Riston’s attention. Ze couldn’t make out words, but the tones were clear, rough orders from one interspersed with quiet responses from several others. Something was happening beyond the wall dividing medical in two. The operating room was over there. And Shadow. Riston pressed so close to the force shield the hairs on zir arms and neck stood up from the vibrations in the air. It didn’t help zem hear anything better, but was it zir imagination, or were the voices getting closer?
Even with that slight warning, ze nearly stumbled straight into the shield when two nurses appeared at the other end of the room. Ze quickly stepped backward as they drew closer, guiding something behind them. Their bodies blocked his view. Questions pulsed inside zir head; ze asked none. The nurses approaching said nothing. Silence created an almost physical barrier between them, pushing Riston back as they closed in. Ze watched, though, cataloging every twitch of their faces and aborted motion of their hands until they suddenly stopped a meter or so from the shield. The closer nurse took a gun out of the holster on their belt.
Riston stopped breathing. Death by nurse was not how ze’d expected this to end.
Zir eyes flickered between the foreboding expression on the nurse’s face and the small handgun. It took zem a second to recognize the compact black design. Ze wasn’t staring at death; this fired nonlethal projectiles which delivered an agonizingly painful shock to whoever or whatever they hit. Having survived the experience once already, Riston wasn’t eager to repeat it. With hands held up, palms out, ze pressed flat against the rear wall, bowing zir head as much as ze could without losing sight of the people beyond the barrier.
At a nod from the gun wielder, the second nurse moved to a control panel to the right of the archway. Seconds later, the computer pinged, and the shield dropped, but Riston barely noticed. Ze could see what was between them now. It was a hovercart about two meters long, bearing a white fiber-reinforced polymer bag. Like the gun, this was something ze recognized. Riston had seen these before, and ze’d hoped to go cycles longer before seeing it again.
That was a cold-storage bag. For bodies. For the dead. For Shadow.
“No!” The denial escaped Riston on a thin wisp of air, but it didn’t change anything.
Ze had risked everything, and it hadn’t worked. It was like watchin
g an explosion and knowing there was nowhere safe to run. All ze could do now was brace and pray no one else got caught in the destruction ze had helped cause.
Riston slid down the wall, knees pulled tight to zir chest to curl zirself into a tight ball that hid the tears streaming down zir face. Tremors tightened zir muscles and snapped zir jaw shut until ze felt like ze might shake apart entirely. The nurse guiding the cart moved into the room. Riston heard their passage, but ze didn’t look up. Couldn’t. If ze opened zir eyes, all ze would see was the cold-storage bag, and all ze’d be able to think about was the friend whose body was now coated with frost, drained of life, and waiting to be jettisoned into the black.
Riston started counting as a distraction, counting breaths and heartbeats and quickly losing track of both. Reality interrupted constantly. Shadow falling out of the storage closet, bloody and gasping. The elevator doors opening to reveal an entire security team with weapons pointed at zir head. The hovercart approaching with its horrifying cargo and the sickening realization that Riston had been too late. Adrienn hadn’t been able to save Shadow, and Riston had given up zir own freedom and risked the others for nothing.
Shadow was dead. Riston truly had failed.
More orders came from the main bay. Captain Antares’s sharp words pushed everyone out of the room and locked it down. Riston didn’t move. Hours passed. Zir ass was numb, zir tears had run out, zir back ached, and zir stomach gurgled with constant cries for food. Ze only distantly noticed. The pain of yet another loss was too raw, another gaping wound that would take cycles to heal. It wasn’t the first. Ze was practically riddled with holes and scars—zir family on Ladadhi, so many friends on various stations, Shadow. It was honestly a wonder ze could breathe around all those fissures; zir lungs were more scar than tissue.
And then the voices rose again.
Riston hadn’t heard anything except the nurse’s quiet footsteps since Captain Antares cleared the bay. If there were voices now, someone was probably coming to see zem. Ze tried to take a breath and prepare as best ze could, but zir chest felt too tight to draw in air. The last time people approached, they’d brought death with them.
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