by K. Gorman
“It’s fun to look at, isn’t it?” Marc followed her gaze, taking in the room’s decorations. “Sure beats my room.”
“Yeah.” She gave the area another glance, examining some of Soo-jin’s posters. “Makes me want to pick up something next time we’re in port. Don’t know what I’d get, though.”
“Me, neither.” Marc leaned back against the wall, his netlink tipping down to his lap as he relaxed.
Once again, Karin found herself wondering about his background—that military streak had certainly proven efficient tonight—but she stopped herself from asking. Instead, she turned her gaze back to the bed, studying the blanketed lump that was Soo-jin.
She must have fallen asleep fast. It hadn’t been that long since they’d made their plan, and she hadn’t moved at all since Karin had come in.
Maybe she’d taken something from Med to help herself along.
Karin did another sweep of the walls, then to the front of the room. As her gaze came back to Marc, she found him doing similar.
“Is it nosy, do you think?” she asked, giving him a small, half-guilty smile. “I always feel so curious about other people’s rooms.”
He snorted. “I think it’s just human. She put in earbuds, by the way.”
“What?”
He nodded to Soo-jin, then gestured to his ear. “You know, those things you put in to block out sound? She’s got ‘em. We don’t have to worry about her waking.”
Karin nodded.
“I’ve been thinking,” he continued. “Do you know much about demons?”
“No more than the average person, I’d guess,” she lied. “I’m afraid I wasn’t raised in a cult.”
Not quite accurate, though perhaps technically true. The scientists, for all their religious and pseudo-scientific mumbo jumbo, had not been a cult. They’d been a corporation.
He nodded. “Neither was I, but a buddy of mine had some weird ideas when we were on a campaign together. Said he could feel demons all around the camp.”
“That could be psychosis,” she said.
He waved a hand. “I know—but the thing is, the rest of us started feeling it, too. And some weird shit started going down.”
That still could have been psychosis, but best to retain that thought to herself. “What kind of shit?”
“Things going missing, glitched-up circuits in combat gear, that kind of thing. One morning, we found all the safeties off on our rifles.”
“Sounds like a ghost story.”
In fact, she could recount more than a dozen tales of similar happenings, all found on paranormal net-forums. After her escape from the compound, and subsequent crash-course into Sirius system society, she’d done a lot of research, trying to figure out why the scientists had done what they had done, what precisely the scientists had done and how they could possibly have achieved the results they did—kids with abnormal powers weren’t, she’d found out, typical results of scientific research—and crawling through every last nook and thread that she remembered.
She basically had a PhD in mythology, at this point. And knew far more about illegal genetic experimentation than she cared to.
“Yeah, but a pretty shitty one,” Marc continued, and it took her a second to shift back to the topic of conversation. “Nothing happened except that. After a while, we found the things that had been missing—or gave up on them—fixed what had been broken, and the rest of it just stopped.” He shook his head. “Maybe ghosts don’t need a plot?”
“Maybe,” she said. “Ghosts are just dead people, right? Maybe the occasional wandering live spirit, depending on what stories one believes?”
“Right.”
As he relaxed back against the wall, his gaze shifting away from her and across the room again, the conversation hit a lull. She masked a yawn, and her stare rounded on Marc’s coffee cup. Maybe she could do with one herself. It had been a long day, even without the attack, and she had a lot to think about.
And, magical light abilities aside, she was only human.
The muscles of her jaw clenched tight.
The light might be a problem if Soo-jin and Marc were to watch her sleep. She’d taken the last sleep slot for that very reason—if a demon reappeared while either Soo-jin or Marc were sleeping, then perhaps they would know better how to deal with them by the time one appeared for her.
And maybe, by then, she wouldn’t have to defend herself quite so… brightly.
Of course, if Nomiki appeared in her dreams again…
She flexed the part of her forearm that dream-Nomiki had slashed, feeling an echo of the ache. Then, she turned to Marc. “Actually, I was wondering about our dreams.”
“Yeah?” He lifted an eyebrow. “You think they mean anything?”
“Who knows? I mean, we did have the same, or very similar, dream.” She leaned forward. “Can you tell me about yours? What were the ruins like?”
Were they anything like the ones I grew up around, back on Earth?
He shrugged. “Just a bunch of rocks, I guess. Not anything I’d recognize as a building.” He bit his lip. Then, like her, he leaned forward, his hand gesturing between them. “You know that picture of Old Earth you see every now and then? One of the more popular sites? A bunch of stones in a circle? Kind of rectangular?”
“Stonehenge?”
He snapped his fingers at her, then pointed. “Yes. That. I—” He froze as Soo-jin stirred, then when she stopped, continued in a lower voice. “They were like that, except not as organized—as if they were really abandoned. In actual ruin. Do you know what I mean?”
She nodded. “How many were there?”
“Five?” he guessed. “Six-ish? They had some kind of designs on them.”
She straightened. “Could you make them out?”
He shook his head. “Not really. They were too faded. A bunch of lines.”
Damn. She sat back down, fingering the edge of her netlink. For a second there, she’d hoped he’d actually seen something in them—something she hadn’t.
But that was illogical to hope for. She was one of the very few people who knew about those ruins on this side of the gate. Only Nomiki had more experience with them, being two years older. And they’d spent the last seven years trying to push those memories as far away as they could.
After a minute, she realized she was rubbing farther down from where Nomiki had slashed her and pulled her hand away. Anxiety scratching. Probably best not to do it while Marc was watching. She put it on her other side, re-crossed her legs, and leaned forward again. “How tall was the grass in your dream? Waist-high?”
“About that, yeah. Some of it might have been higher.” He narrowed his eyes, sizing her up. “Maybe chest-high for you.”
“Did you see stars?
“Yep. Lots of them.” He caught her eyes with his. “I guess we really did have the same dream.”
“I guess,” she agreed, though she had come to that conclusion about the same time Soo-jin had first brought it up. If the three of them had simultaneously been dreaming about standing rock ruins right before they’d been attacked by the same type of enemy, she’d felt the chances were slim that they would be different rock ruins.
Of course, maybe that was a terrible assumption. Earth did, after all, have multiple ruin sites. She doubted hers was even unique.
“Was there…” She hesitated. “Was there anyone else there with you?”
“No.” He had a similar hesitation. “You?”
Even though she’d expected the question, the lump in her throat felt sudden and uncomfortable. For a second, she couldn’t breathe, and a shift in his face told her he’d already clicked onto what she hadn’t said. She held his gaze, the muscles tightening in her neck and jaw. Pressure built behind her eyes.
She looked away. “My sister.”
A small quiet took the room. Her tone had been shakier than she liked. Normally, she was better at hiding things, but the Shadow and the possible connection to her past had unsettled
her. She couldn’t see his face, but his hands were easily visible. They lay still on his lap, one holding the forgotten netlink steady, the other gripping the upper part of his thigh.
When he spoke, his voice thrummed low and soft. Casual. “Troubled history?”
She pushed a breath through her lips. “You could say that.”
“I won’t ask.”
She nodded. “Thanks.”
They both grew quiet again. For a few minutes, the soft, semi-rhythmic ebb and flow of Soo-jin’s breath became the loudest sound in the room. Karin felt the floor hum against her feet and used the sensation to ground herself. Slowly, the lump in her throat grew lesser, dissipated. Her own breath returned to relative normal, matching Soo-jin’s.
After a while, Marc stirred.
“I guess time will tell if those dreams meant anything.”
She shrugged. “Maybe. Or maybe it was all just a coincidence.”
To that, he gave her a grim look.
“I don’t believe in coincidence.”
Chapter Six
Two and a half cycles later, the dashboard computer beeped as they came within range of the closest relay. Other beeps and tones echoed throughout the ship as all their netlinks latched onto the connection and began to update everything they’d missed over the last week. Most of them came from Karin’s left, where Soo-jin lounged in the navigator’s chair, legs crossed under her, a netlink balanced on her knee.
“Finally,” she sighed.
The Shadows had yet to reappear, and they had fallen into an easy routine. It was technically Marc’s turn to sleep, but he’d woken up early, and the rest of them hadn’t wanted to miss the relay. Soo-jin might have been the one most addicted to the feeds—from what she’d told Karin, she had at least twelve net-fiction serials on the go—but, for the rest of them, they needed the connection to access news, mail, and for library requests into everything that so much as whispered about Shadow people.
As if on cue, Karin’s netlink blooped.
She picked it up, scrolling through the list of e-mails for anything from Nomiki.
Nothing.
They were still a few days out from any major settlement—more than a week from the closest planet—but information took less time than ships to travel. She cross-checked her calculations with the date stamps on her inbox.
The last e-mail was from two cycles ago—the day after the attack.
By that, if Nomiki were on planet and not in space, she would get Karin’s messages in another two cycles.
Gods, she missed having instant communication with her sister. Normally, flying into the black made up for that, but not now.
She needed to talk to Nomiki.
There was nothing she could do, though. She might be able to manipulate light, but the scientists had neglected to give her faster comms. If she’d known precisely where Nomiki was, she could have sent a more-direct radio.
As it was, it had to go through the regular comms rerouting.
Hopefully Nomiki wasn’t on one of her black ops missions.
Karin leaned back with a sigh, then skipped into another tab to check the news feeds.
But as she was scrolling through the backlog, another beep sounded from the dashboard, this one deeper in tone than the others.
Soo-jin glanced up with a frown. “What’s that?”
Karin leaned forward to tap the screen. As she brought up the alert, a second beep sounded—this time from the relay feed.
“We’re getting a double signal. Through both the relay and shipboard sensors.” Her frown deepened as she glanced through the log. “Standard distress beacon.”
Soo-jin straightened in her chair, much more alert. “Seriously?”
“Yeah.” Karin stiffened. A sudden cold went through her muscles. “It was logged three days ago.”
The sudden, stone-serious expression on Soo-jin’s face only mirrored the rigidity in Karin’s own body.
Three cycles ago.
The night of the attack.
They exchanged a long look. Then Soo-jin leaned back in her chair and turned toward the door.
“Yo, Cap. You’re gonna need to see this.”
A chair creaked from down the hall. The ship was so small that Karin could see the light from the kitchen door reflect against the floor.
“Yeah? Something interesting?”
“Not a good interesting.”
She reached forward, bringing up the outboard display and putting the sensor data on the secondary screen. A second later, the tiny, distant pinpricks of stars filled the main screen, interspersed by the kind of cold blackness one felt in space. They weren’t near any major planets, but they were close to one of the official shipping routes for the sector.
He walked in just as she zoomed in on the beacon’s source.
“We’re moving toward it, kind of. Should be able to see it—there.”
Once the computer recognized the object, it did the rest for her. A second later, the other ship’s somewhat grainy image came up in full display in front of them.
“Passenger vessel. Looks old.” Marc paused to glance through the data on the other screen, his face as stone-serious as it had been the other night. “I don’t like that time stamp.”
“Neither do we,” Karin commented. “You think they got attacked, too?”
“It’s not something I’d rule out.” He crossed his arms across his chest, tapping one finger against his bicep. “We’re moving closer, you said?”
“Tangentially, yes. We’d have to dip down a bit to intercept.”
He nodded. “Do it. I want a closer look.”
Forty minutes later, the ship loomed in the view ports, coming closer. The Nemina sailed steady as a low tone thrummed through the control room, occasionally crackling on the old speakers, trying to connect to the ship’s comms link.
After another thirty seconds, Karin shut the call down.
“No answer, huh?” Marc squinted, leaning forward. “Soo-jin?”
“Signs of life. About twenty people.” She leaned into the sensor monitor. “Maybe twenty-one. It’s fluctuating.”
The Nemina used a mix of thermal and electromagnetic radiation in its life scans. Ex-military, so they were fairly good, but still archaic compared to what either of the system’s main militaries were using nowadays.
Marc grunted. “Maybe some of them are cuddling. Any ID yet?”
“Ping-back names it ‘Ozark.’ If I had to guess, I’d say it’s a nomad vessel. Looks ex-colony, so maybe meant for settlement transport.” Soo-jin slid the ship’s stats onto the main screen. “See how the pods have been modified? They may have floated the reg number.”
Karin arched her eyebrows. ‘Floating’ referred to the practice of filing down the ship’s outward registration so that only electronic registration could be used. Mostly, only gangs and small-time smugglers employed the practice.
“I’ll try and keep my prejudices in check,” Marc said. “How’s engine? Life support?”
“Fine,” Soo-jin said. “I’m detecting a decent amount of energy kickback.”
“Then why don’t I see any lights?”
Karin glanced up. There were no outward signs of light. Not even running lights, nor anything through the numerous portholes visible in its sides.
“Night cycle?” she asked.
She doubted it. Even night cycle had some light. No one wanted to run into metal walls on the way to the toilet.
Marc grunted again. “Maybe. Hail them again.”
She redialed. The low thrum filled the bridge once more. It reminded her of the sounds the wood doves made back on Belenus in the evenings.
They let the call go for five minutes this time. Given the ship’s size, and the small number of its apparent crew, it wasn’t unbelievable that someone might have to run a ways to pick up the call—especially if there were complications from whatever emergency had caused its current broadcast.
In the front view port, the ship grew steadily clo
ser.
“Twenty people, and not one of them can pick up a call?” Marc glanced to Soo-jin. “What do you think? Trap?”
“If so, it’s a stupid one. Only crazy people like us come out all this way.” She took one last squint at her screen, then turned her head up to the view port. “I don’t see weapons.”
“Doesn’t mean they aren’t there. Pirates can get quite creative in their camouflage.” Marc’s finger tapped his arm again, his jaw working as he stared at the oncoming ship. “Karin, anything else around?”
“No.” She’d already done the scan. “Just the relay.”
His jaw worked some more as he considered. “All right. Take us in.”
She rocked her chair forward, then pulled the manual controls from the desktop. The ship dipped as she took control, loose from its pre-programmed autopilot. She pointed its nose, engaged the thrusters, and guided them in.
As far as ships went, Marc’s was much more responsive than she’d expected it to be. The convertible Fallon scout-supply ship still had much of its old career bound in the circuitry. From what he had told her, they could still repair the half-stripped Imperial communications circuits and dial in—if they were looking to court trouble.
That was part of the reason Cookie, Marc’s cousin and their scrounge site data-miner, was never allowed on board.
She switched off the proximity alert as they closed in, then took them below, completing a slow loop around the vessel.
Apart from its engines, which kept a steady ion-plasma burn on the thrusters, the ship appeared dead. Nothing moved except the shadows on its side, stretching and warping across its gun-gray hull as they passed. Dark portholes glinted and flashed as the Nemina’s outboard lights swept by. On the other side, the communication’s array stuck out like a skeleton tree.
“You guys see anything?” Marc asked.
“Nope.”
Karin shook her head, concentrating on the flight. “I’ll take us in front.”
Like the Nemina, the Ozark had a viewing station across the front and top of its bridge—except its was much larger than the old military scout’s. Again, she felt their engine shift as she engaged the thrusters, dropping them into a matching drift as she eased over the horizon and dipped their nose down to put the other bridge into view.
