Void Black Shadow

by Corey J. White

  “Was that you?” Squid asks, voice coming through comms while their mouth stays static.

  “Yes,” I yell as I brush the next attack aside. My eyes struggle to focus as the ship shudders against the friction of re-entry.

  “If you keep that up we might just make it,” Squid says.

  There’s a squirming between my shoulder blades and Ocho maows hopelessly. I ignore her and stagger from behind the pilot’s seat over to the front viewport and lean with both palms flat against the void-proof glass.

  “We’ve lost the last of the thrusters,” Waren says, with artificial calm. “We are now in free fall.”

  What I wouldn’t give for an AI’s lack of fear right now.

  Ocho’s latest incarnation is still only juvenile, so she doesn’t hinder my view too badly when she maneuvers into the helmet of my suit. She stares down at the rapidly approaching surface and makes a curious-sounding trill.

  “Don’t worry, little one: it’ll take more than gravity to do us in,” I say. Ocho stays in my helmet, with her tail flicking my cheek and a paw pressed against the glass like she’s mimicking me.

  We’re close enough now that I can see the plasma cannons: matte-white shapes on the planet’s crystalline surface. In the distance a tall stack rises from a melted patch of snow, the ground almost black beneath all that white. I inhale deep, focus on the cannons, and strike. Masses of snow leap into the sky, forming temporary clouds that clump, scatter, and fall back to the ground. When it settles, huge indentations mar the ice, like some cosmic god is having a fistfight with the planet.

  I concentrate on the palm of each hand, drawing strength from every part of my mind. My fingers are splayed on the viewport, digits touching the surface of Miyuki and pushing, slowing our descent as my throat burns and my ears fill with the sound of my shouting.

  My eyes sting, lids forced open so I can see; see the looming planet and our fate if I don’t stop this fall.

  The re-entry burn stops, but the ground is still coming up fast, too fast.

  I reach down deep, deeper still, to that reservoir in the furthest part of myself.

  Arm muscles burn as I push against the force of a whole planet, push against this falling gravity. The shout becomes a scream and the planet a tear-blurred field of white.

  The Mouse creaks loudly, metal twisting as I adjust our trajectory. I picture a stone skipping across water and lift the ship’s fore; atmosphere shifts around us and we hurtle forward, still rushing at the ground.

  “Squid! Get out of here! Go back to the others.”

  “No!” they yell. “There’s no time!”

  They’re right.

  I form the largest barrier I can and hold it in front of the Mouse. I watch the ground fly up to meet us as the planet punches back.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Black. White flashes, tumbling.

  Hands aching, fingers clawed in effort.

  Mind tingling, singing. Throb.

  Lungs frozen.

  Black, white, black; pain jolts through my whole body as we strike ground, stomach lurches as we rocket forward. Again. Again. We slow, veer sideways, stop.

  My hands relax inside their gauntlets, and there’s heavy panting inside my helmet. The noise recedes down a black tunnel and darkness returns.

  * * *

  I come to slowly, with Ocho patting my lips with a paw; I groan and turn my head to escape her prodding. I cough and frozen air burns my lungs. Fragments of shattered helmet glass in my cheek. I unfasten the helmet and drop it to the floor; the warm blood on my face turns cold as the wind of Miyuki pushes through fissures in the Mouse’s hull.

  I grab Ocho around the belly and find a wet patch of blood on her side. I part the fur, fingers probing for a wound, but there’s nothing there.

  Oh good; it’s only my blood.

  Ocho rubs her chin on my hand. I pull the hood of my cloak out from my suit and lift it over my head. I put Ocho on my shoulder, and she crawls into the raised hood and lies down, wrapping herself around the back of my neck.

  Squid hangs forward against the chair restraints, forehead touching the glass of their helmet. I crouch in front of them and tap on the glass. “Squid,” I say firmly.

  Their eyelids flutter, open wide, close, then open again. The chromatophores beneath their skin pulsate green. I open the clasp at the neck of their suit and lift the helmet off.

  “Squid, are you okay?”

  They twist in the seat, then retch and vomit. They wipe their mouth on the padded sleeve of their space suit and look at me. “That’s not the worst landing I’ve ever experienced, but it is close.” Squid manages a weak smile, and I stand and help them to their feet. They sway for a moment. “We need to check on the others.”

  “Wait, I’ve got to get Waren.”

  “Alright,” Squid says, nodding. “I’ll burst a message to Einri, tell it to follow and wait in orbit for us.”

  I unlock the recessed panel on the rear wall of the cockpit, revealing a metal handle. I twist it and a gray cylinder emerges with a hiss of escaping coolant gases. The AI’s brain is dense, small but heavy. Blinking lights down one side tell me it’s still operational. I clip it to my suit. “Okay, now we can go.”

  Squid leads us through the crumpled corridors of the ship while electrical fires fill the air with acrid smoke. When we reach the air lock, the inner door is open. Trix stands by the shattered exterior door, lasrifle raised to her shoulder, looking through her scope at the tundra beyond.

  “Hear that?” she asks.

  Beneath the sound of the ship settling in its icy grave and the sparking of its electrical systems, there’s a low, steady rumble.

  “What is it?” Squid says.

  “Scrap shower,” I say, without needing to look. “The ships I wrecked drifting into the planet’s gravity well.”

  I go unstrap Pale from the wall. A bright gash of glare bounces off his helmet and into my eyes. I block the light so I can see properly, and the look on his face is ecstatic. Is this his first time seeing ice and snow? Shit, is it his first time on a planet?

  “You okay?” I ask.

  He nods.

  “We have to get moving,” Squid says.

  I use my mind to push open the broken fragments of door. The light is blinding at first, and I blink to clear the floating spots from my vision. Snow crunches beneath my feet as I step outside; after a moment the others emerge behind me.

  The sky is a cloudless dirty gray, cut with lines of orange-red as wreckage tumbles into the atmosphere. At this distance, all those pieces of MEPHISTO ships look like they’re moving slow, like the chunks of debris aren’t quickly approaching terminal velocity as they hurtle toward the surface.

  “We have company,” Squid says.

  I follow their pointed finger: three white armored personnel carriers hover across the ice toward us, empty air shimmering beneath them.

  I raise a hand but Trix yells, “Wait.”

  “What?”

  “We could use one of those.”

  “Fuck,” I say, because she’s right and I would’ve just trashed them all. Don’t get carried away, Mars. “Squid, you and Pale stay behind us.”

  Squid takes Pale’s hand and they move back, standing in the mouth of my broken ship—Waren’s broken ship.

  I look to Trix and she nods, raising her rifle.

  I reach out and grab the APC on the right, then toss it high into the air. It crashes into the ground with a crunch and I smash it flat. I lash out at the one on the left, punching it so hard it flips end over end and crashes into the ice, skidding on its roof before it comes to a halt.

  The third APC pivots without slowing, gliding at me and Trix while the two large doors on its side open. It stops dead twenty meters away, inertia launching eight soldiers clad in thick, insulated outfits onto the snow—MEPHISTO black and maroon like a bruise on Miyuki’s surface.

  The soldiers hit the ground without slowing, their legs churning snow behind them as they run
with fluid grace, levelling their weapons at us: bullpup ballistic carbines. They fire short, controlled bursts, but I raise a psychic wall; bullets thud into the shield like rain falling on my mind, then drop into the snow. I grab hold of the guns and tear them from the soldiers’ hands, but even that doesn’t slow them.

  Trix snaps off a shot with her lasrifle and a grunt goes down. I toss three aside, but they land, roll, and get back to their feet in a single movement. I focus on the one closest to me, lift him into the air and clench my fist, but his rib cage holds. What the hell? I grunt loud and crush again, too hard this time, and blood explodes across the snow.

  I drop the carcass and another soldier leaps over the body, drawing his sidearm. With one hand I grab his legs, with the other his chest, and I tear him in half, flinging the two pieces aside.

  There’s a scream behind me.

  I spin around: one of the soldiers is almost on Squid and Pale. Before I can react, Pale shrieks again and the soldier is thrown back, striking the ground hard with their chest split open like a bloody maw. Pale sways on his feet for a second, and Squid catches him before he falls, lowering him to the ground as the boy shakes and spasms.

  I turn back and another two soldiers have fallen to Trix’s lasrifle. The last three rush at her in concert. I grab hold and crush them hard and fast, their mangled corpses smacking wetly as they hit the ground.

  I approach Trix and put a hand on one of the steel struts of her exoskeleton. “You good?”

  She nods, breath fogging the inside of her helmet as she pants.

  I walk over to one of the soldiers that Trix killed. I open his jacket and smell laser-cooked meat; one scent I’d hoped to never come across again. The charred flesh parts to reveal matte metal where his ribs should be. His skin is adorned with hexagonal scarring running across his chest and up his neck—only his face is clear.

  Ocho pokes her head out of my hood and lifts her nose into the air.

  “No,” I say, and she mraows sadly as I strip the jacket off the dead soldier.

  I take the coat to Squid and they wrap it around Pale.

  “Trix, come take a look,” I say. She sighs loudly to let me know I’m inconveniencing her, but follows me back to the half-naked corpse. “You seen anything like this before?” I ask.

  Trix bends down and inspects the body. After a few seconds she shakes her head. “No. Back in my mercenary days I saw MEPHISTO troops with some brutal augs, but never anything so, I don’t know, subtle.”

  I nod, because that’s exactly the word for it—subtle. Cyborg supersoldiers that can hide in plain sight. Sneak them onto planets where imperial forces aren’t usually welcome, build up slowly, then stage a coup. Local authorities would have no idea what was hiding in their midst.

  When we get back to Squid and Pale, he’s lying in Squid’s lap, staring up at the sky; what little color he normally has has completely drained from his skin.

  Leaning over the boy, Trix pinches Pale’s cheek and he smiles. “You scared us, guy.”

  Now the adrenaline has drained from my system, I start to shiver. My nose burns in the cold and I grab my hood at my throat and pull it closed as best I can.

  “We need to get moving,” Squid says.

  Trix picks Pale up and carries him to the APC, stepping over twisted bodies, bones breaking through skin and blood turning to ice. She lays him across three of the seats and turns to Squid. “Which way?”

  I shield my eyes and scan the horizon. “There,” I say, pointing. The tall black stacks I saw during our descent are barely visible over a distant hill.

  Squid nods, then looks to the sky, as overhead the sound of thunder grows—shrapnel descending. “Let’s go.”

  We climb into the APC, and Squid takes the driver’s seat. They shift into gear and the vehicle lifts off the ground with a steady hum. As we turn around, I take one last look at the wreck of the Mouse.

  “Sorry, Waren,” I say under my breath, patting the core that still hangs from my suit.

  I drop my hood and grab Ocho. Her fur is puffed up, but she’s still shivering. I put her inside my suit and zip it up so only her head is showing. She half closes her eyes in appreciation and starts to purr.

  The rumbling in the sky grows louder, and there’s a deafening boom as a colossal piece of former-frigate strikes the ice behind us.

  “Hang on!” Squid yells over their shoulder, and we jolt back as they hit the acceleration hard.

  Billowing black smoke streaks the sky as the burning wreckage plummets down. All those broken ships, falling like snow. I try not to think about how many people I killed just getting us down here, but the only thing that can stop me from counting is to picture Mookie’s face. If they hadn’t taken him, we wouldn’t be here.

  If Briggs had left me alone, I wouldn’t have killed him and every person under his command.

  I look over at Pale, craning his neck to watch the sky show of destruction.

  “Mars?” he says, his voice barely a squeak.

  “Yeah?”

  “That was fun.” He smiles.

  Trix laughs once, but when I look to her, she turns away.

  Fun? Fuck. He’s too young to realize that mass destruction isn’t meant to be fun, that you’re not meant to take a life so casually.

  He’s young; what’s my excuse?

  CHAPTER FOUR

  We pass the crushed and smoking wrecks of the defense cannons on our way to the main facility. Squid slows the APC as we approach, in case more troops are lying in ambush, but there’s no resistance.

  The facility is a squat structure, made to look taller by the long, wedge-shaped heatsinks that reach up to the firmament. The heat output melts snow in a ten-meter ring around the building, marring the fields of white with a large black moat of sodden dirt.

  The massive door off to one side of the building opens automatically. Squid takes us down into the garage and parks the APC near the entry to the facility proper.

  “Einri just arrived in orbit with the Nova,” they say. “It’s ready to send the shuttle whenever we need.”

  “Great,” I say, as I step out of the APC and stretch. My breath comes in white plumes, but it’s warmer down here in the vehicle lot with the door closed. Not warm, just warmer than below-fucking-freezing.

  Trix steps down from the APC, exofoot clanging against the ground. “What happened with Pale back there? You were meant to be training him,” she says, words thick with venom.

  “I’m teaching him to control his powers, but I can’t do shit about his fear or trauma.”

  Squid climbs through to the back of the APC and sits so Pale can rest his head in their lap. Despite his pallor, Pale’s eyes are bright and watch us intently as we speak.

  “You saw what he did to that soldier; what if that was the hull of the ship he tore apart?”

  “Then we might have crashed,” I say, sardonically. Ocho shifts between my shoulder blades; she’s asleep, unaware of, or unconcerned by, the loud argument happening around her.

  “Can we talk about this later?” Squid pours water from a canteen into Pale’s mouth.

  “He can’t help it,” I say, ignoring Squid.

  “That’s exactly the problem.”

  “Fuck off, Trix; he’s just a kid,” I say.

  Trix sneers, and I half expect her to cross the gap between us, slam me against the hull of the APC, and try and strangle me; you know, that old song and dance. She shakes her head, but stays put. “Doesn’t mean he isn’t dangerous.”

  “We don’t know what MEPHISTO did to him,” Squid says, “but he’s unstable, and we need to do something about the seizures.”

  I nod. “Miguel said all of MEPHISTO’s records are here; we’ll find what they did to Pale. In the meantime, we should put him to sleep,” I say, and at that Trix steps forward. I hold a hand up and say, “Not permanently, fuck. If Pale’s sedated, he won’t freak out; if he doesn’t freak out then he won’t push his powers too far and hurt himself.”

&nbs
p; Trix scoffs. “Or us. And we can’t keep calling him ‘Pale’; it’s a descriptor, not a name.”

  “How does ‘Bob’ sound?” I say, winking at Pale. “I think he looks like a ‘Bob.’”

  “Seadation is probably the safest bet, for now,” Squid says.

  “Fine.” Trix grunts, then crouches down, exoframe clanging against the floor. “Strap the kid on then.”

  Squid and I fasten Pale to the exoskeleton and I zip up his oversized jacket. Trix walks to the exit and Pale smiles as his whole body is swung from side to side with Trix’s mechanical gait.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Exiting the garage brings us to a bank of elevators. I hit the call button and the nearest door opens, spilling yellowish light across the floor. I let Trix and Squid in first, then follow. The air smells like the inside of a refrig unit—a dank, clinically unclean scent.

  A holographic list hangs an inch from the wall, letters refracted off burnished steel: Data Storage, Administration, Garrison, Medical Research.

  “Medical first,” Squid says, poking a finger into the shimmering lights.

  We’re already underground, so I expect the elevator to move up, but it descends further beneath Miyuki’s frozen surface.

  After a minute the elevator slows. A tone chimes and the doors slide open on a wide, empty corridor of white walls. I step out and check the corners, my boots squeaking on the rubbery flooring, gray marbled with streaks of black. The damp odor of the elevator gives way to the scent of antiseptics—a sharp smell that burns clean through my nostrils.

  At the far end of the corridor is a set of doors in frosted glass. I move forward and the others follow, the whir of Trix’s exo over-loud in the enclosed space.

  I press the large button in the center of the door and it splits, revealing a cavernous room bisected by a curtain of clear polyplastic. Hospital beds line one of the walls, each attended by an autodoc, and beyond the transparent veil sit rows of large cages, their walls opaque and darkened by shadows.

  I expected more movement in Medical—doctors and nurses doing their rounds, rushing about and barking jargon—but the place is quiet. Most of the autodocs stand dormant; only a few glow with blue-green light.