by K. Gorman
It bubbled up through her core, bright and powerful.
She snapped her eyes open and lunged. Her hands slapped on either side of Soo-jin’s head.
Light exploded from her in a flash of white.
Marc gave a strangled yell and flinched backward, the movement rocking Soo-jin’s chair—it clunked against the floor—but he held strong. Karin focused. Light was everywhere. She couldn’t see. Tensing her fingers, she used the movement to focus.
Slowly, it condensed. Instead of a blanket-whiteness, it slipped into waves of plasma that shone and glittered like silver-dusted, glowing milk.
It rippled around them, pretty and bright.
Soo-jin didn’t seem to care. Her black eyes reflected it like a soft, moving galaxy. Karin could see them switch back and forth, focusing on different parts of the light as it ebbed and undulated.
Her gut churned.
It’s not working.
She frowned, blinking back the pricking of tears that threatened. It had been flawed logic, anyway. Why had she thought that her light could heal people? There was no evidence of that. It may hurt the Shadows, but Soo-jin wasn’t a Shadow. Soo-jin was human. All Karin was doing was—possibly—giving her a good UVB bath.
And she wasn’t even sure she was doing that. She’d never tested her power. She didn’t know jack shit about how they worked. All that had been left in the lab back on Old Earth.
She should just stop. Tell Ethan it hadn’t worked. Swear Marc to secrecy—and delete the goddamn security footage of her even trying.
Except, deep down, there was a small part of her that stayed her hand.
Somewhere, something had woken up. And it was speaking to her—not in words, but in feeling.
It felt like there was something missing.
She frowned. Her shoulders were beginning to ache from her position. She relaxed them, let her fingers slide forward and then off of Soo-jin’s cheeks as she straightened, and glanced around her.
The light moved, half liquid, half dust. Motes of it shimmered in the air, warping the light into curves of fluctuating energy like the lingering birth dust of some white-washed new star.
She frowned, glancing around. Her gaze settled on the flashlight Marc had used. She remembered the way Soo-jin’s eyes had seemed to give a bit as he’d put it closer.
Her frown deepened as she turned back to Soo-jin. The light swirled around her as she tilted her wrist, controlling it as if it were on strings. Some of it coalesced on the pads of her fingers.
Those Shadows—attacking hadn’t been their goal.
They’d been trying to get inside.
What if she tried to… push it out?
She took the thought and stepped forward again. The light shifted as she rolled her shoulders and stooped down. She put her palms across Soo-jin’s eyes, called on her power, and pushed.
Suddenly, Soo-jin was no longer compliant.
The chair bucked upward. A foot caught the side of Karin’s calf in a vicious kick. She leaned forward, pushing her knee up on Soo-jin’s lap to hold her down. Fingers clawed at her legs and shirt. Soo-jin’s features contorted under Karin’s hands.
Marc grunted as she fought. She felt him lean back, anchor her down.
Then he gave a sudden yelp. His arms vanished behind the chair.
Soo-jin’s hands clamped around Karin’s throat. The room tipped sideways, and they tumbled together onto the floor. She screamed. Light flooded through them.
Then, after a few seconds of thrashing, Soo-jin went limp.
The Shadow roared out of her body, massive in the room. It loomed over her, both hands reaching down.
Marc tackled it into the table. Its claws raked across the back of his shirt, drawing blood. She heard him gasp from pain and effort.
She slammed down all the remaining light in the room into its head.
The room went dark. Then, it seemed to explode. Light and Shadow skirmished like an electrical storm, flashing like strobes, utterly silent.
Then everything stopped.
When the lights shivered back on, flickering as if there’d been a power cut, only the shreds of the Shadow remained. They lifted into the air, fading fast into the light.
Marc took a few steps back from the table, breathing hard, his eyes wide. Sweat gleamed on his arms and forehead. After several long seconds, he turned, gave her a quick glance, then walked past her. Karin rocked back against the wall as he picked up Soo-jin, cradling her in his arms.
He checked her nose and mouth for breath, holding his hand in front of them for a few seconds. Then, one finger shaking, he pulled up the top part of her eyelid.
White sclera showed underneath, along with a piece of her brown iris.
The breath blew from Karin’s body in relief—but she tensed a second later when Marc turned her way.
He didn’t say anything, just stared.
Then he straightened his shoulders and headed toward the door. He plugged in the security override, opened it, and left without a word.
Chapter Twenty-One
Left alone, Karin sank back against the hard walls of the Mess and let out a breath.
So, her secret was out.
She supposed it had only been a matter of time, considering the universe had thrown a sudden attack of Shadow people against humanity. If it hadn’t, she might have stayed hidden—even on the occasional times that a nightmare chased her light powers into action.
Private cabins were useful for that.
She glanced to her side. Soo-jin lay limp on the floor where they’d left her. She did not look asleep, but like she’d passed out—a very important medical difference in terms of bodily function. Karin crinkled her nose as the smell came to her, then took a shallow breath and crawled over, pulling Soo-jin into a more recovery-capable position.
They should get her to Med. They could put her on the monitors. See if she really was okay. The Shadow had only been in her for a few minutes, but they had no idea what it had been doing in there. It hadn’t reacted to Karin’s light until after she’d started pushing it in—so either it hadn’t seen and recognized the threat, or…
The fog cleared from her mind as the thought struck her.
She had just saved Soo-jin’s life.
Her. Her power.
It could help people.
She froze. The unexpected emotion rolled over her—half fear, half awe. She laid the back of her fingers against Soo-jin’s throat, feeling her warmth, trying to ignore the way her hand trembled, and then switched them around to get a pulse.
But, before she could count, Soo-jin groaned and moved her arm. Her fingers flexed weakly against the floor.
Then she coughed.
Karin snapped her hand up, moving as Soo-jin shifted. Anticipating what might be coming, and suddenly thankful that the woman had dreads that were easy to pull out of the way, she grabbed them back and swung her legs away just as Soo-jin threw up on the floor.
Her whole body convulsed. Karin crouched behind her, switching her free hand to pat her shoulder in what she hoped was a reassuring gesture. Soo-jin’s eyes fluttered open after a minute, then squinted against the light.
It took them several long seconds to focus, finally finding Karin’s face and then wincing away at the light.
“Wha—” she said as she turned away, looking around at the Mess. “What’s—the Shadow. Did it—?
“Shh,” Karin said, patting her arm again. “You’re okay.”
A heavy shudder went through Soo-jin’s body. She tried to get up, but her muscles were too weak. Karin saw her elbow shake when she tried.
“What happened? Did you guys—did you guys take care of it?”
The door to the room hissed open again. She flinched at the sound, but relaxed when Marc stepped back in, one of the Medkit monitors in his hand.
He looked relieved to be seeing Soo-jin awake and moving.
He strode over and crouched on her other side, unbuckled the monitor without a word, and wra
pped it around Soo-jin’s bicep.
Karin watched him work.
“I’ve locked down all outbound transmissions from the ship,” he informed her, not looking up from the monitor. “That includes netlinks.”
He said the words with a casual tone, but they struck right into Karin’s chest. She sagged against the wall with relief. That, combined with all the stress and panic and grief of the last several minutes, came crashing down on her. Tears pricked at her eyes.
“Thank you,” she managed.
He didn’t look at her as she turned away, wiping the errant tears off her face. Emotions clumped in her neck and throat, and she forced herself to swallow them down.
The monitor beeped. Marc tilted it toward him and skimmed the data.
Then he unwrapped its band from Soo-jin’s arm.
“How do you feel?”
“Like shit.” Soo-jin groaned. “Eugh. Did I make this mess?”
“I’m afraid so.” The grim expression on his face belied the lightness of his tone. He put a hand under Soo-jin’s elbow. “You think you can move? I want to get you checked out a bit more in Med.”
“Sure, but let’s take things slow.” Soo-jin pushed herself up with a grunt and then shuddered. “Maybe the ship will stop spinning so much.”
Karin took her other side and helped haul her to her feet. Together, they minced their way toward Med.
“What was that? Some kind of augment?”
Karin hesitated, then shook her head. “Not exactly.”
Marc lifted a hand from his arm. “Then what?”
She shook her head, glancing through the room. They were all in the bridge again where she saw, by the flashing icon in the corner of the big screen, that Marc really had halted outward transmission. Soo-jin was the only one sitting, having assumed Karin’s vacant spot in the pilot’s chair. Everyone else either stood or leaned against the walls or dashboard panels.
They all stared at her.
Okay. Time to come clean.
Well, clean-ish.
“I was born on the other side of the ERL gate in a scientific research compound,” she said.
“And this light, I take it,” Marc said, voice slow and even, “was part of that research.”
“Somewhat, yes. They were actually looking for… other things. They never told us.”
Senton raised his eyebrows. “Us?”
Karin winced. She hadn’t meant to drag Nomiki into this.
I need to get out of this. Disappear again. They don’t know her. It’ll all be on me.
“So you really can shoot light from your fingers?” Soo-jin made a slight gesture with the drink box she held. “Seriously?”
Her jaw tightened. “Yes.”
“Oh, come on—don’t hold out on me. Seeing is believing. Put up, sister.”
“No.” Karin gave a half-glance to Senton.
“I saw it,” Marc said. “It’s real.”
Soo-jin craned her head back—and then winced at the movement.
“I’d rather no one saw anything, actually.” Karin glanced through them all, her gaze lingering on Marc. Gods, this had spun so far out of hand. “Can you not tell anyone about this?”
“Hey, wait—” Soo-jin waved a hand. “Is this why you wanted to go on the Ozark? To test it?”
She stiffened. “Yes. Against the Shadows, anyway.”
They all paused to process that. At once, both Marc and Soo-jin directed their attention to Ethan, who’d taken up a position just inside the door.
He still held the crowbar, she noticed.
“I guess this means we owe you an apology,” Soo-jin said.
“Someone owes him an apology, anyway,” Marc said.
Guilt twisted her gut.
Well, at least they aren’t locking me up and handing me over to the authorities.
Yes. She could get out of this.
The hope in her chest crumpled when a small voice spoke from behind her.
“This means you’ll heal my dad, right?” Ethan said in a smile voice. “You can go back and heal them all?”
Her throat constricted again. She was shaking—apart from her sister, up until now, no one else on this side of the gate had known about her powers. That number had quadrupled within a week.
It made her feel naked. Vulnerable.
“Guess we know what we’re doing after Enlil,” Soo-jin commented. “Hope you packed enough to make the trip past Caishen again, Captain—unless you want to offer up Karin’s miracle services?”
“That is a decision we’ll make later, once we’ve processed.” He glanced over to the display. “We don’t even know what it’s like on Enlil’s surface.”
Someone cleared his throat to Karin’s left. Senton lifted a hand from where he leaned against the wall. From his angle, the colors on the dash lit him up head to toe. His eyes focused on hers. “Sorry—did you say you came from the other side of the gate?”
Her spine grew much stiffer than it had been. The other two hadn’t caught that part—but clearly, he knew a bit more.
She gave him a stiff nod.
“That was before the incident, or after?”
Suddenly, all eyes were on her. She opened her mouth, doing a quick calculation.
“Before,” she lied. “We got through just ahead of it.”
Few people came through the ERL gate nowadays. Communications with the Sol system had come to an abrupt halt seven years ago when she and Nomiki had come through.
They hadn’t been directly responsible for the incident, but they sure as hell had made sure it happened.
For the first few years living on this side of the gate, she’d been terrified that people would find out, but, apart from some major headlines that faded after a few months, no one seemed to have noticed.
It helped that Fallon had chosen that time to pull out of the Alliance. On this side of the gate, that was the bigger news. People still lived in the Sol system—or, at least, they had when she and Nomiki had been fleeing their way through the spaceports—but both colonized exo-systems, Alpha Centauri and Sirius, had grown rather isolated in the past century. Only the really rich in Sirius could have afforded tickets to visit Old Earth back when passage between the gate had been possible.
Nova Earth, in the Sirius system, was a much more happening place.
But Senton hadn’t exactly shied from money when bartering passage with them. He hadn’t bartered at all.
And now, he was giving her suspicious looks. “You look… young, is all.”
Her jaw clenched.
Yes. Unless she was a runaway socialite, it was highly unlikely that a young new pilot trained on a mid-system planet could have afforded legitimate tickets on a passenger liner through the gate.
Soo-jin snorted. “Well, at least you didn’t say she looked old. Let’s get back to the whole magic powers thing. You say it hurts Shadows?”
She nodded. “I’ve killed a couple with it.”
“And it heals the black eye bullshit. Huh.” Soo-jin turned. “I don’t know about you, Cap, but I don’t think there’s much Karin can do to get fired.”
He grunted. “She’s signed a contract, anyway. Unless she pisses in your underwear drawer, we have her for five trial gigs.”
Soo-jin lifted her brows. “You actually put that in the contract? And she signed it?”
“It was in the fine print.”
Karin, too, had lifted her brows. “You guys are taking this whole magic thing fairly well.”
“I’m still processing,” Soo-jin said. “My mouth gets smart when I process.”
“Your mouth is always smart,” Marc grumbled.
Soo-jin tipped a thumb his way. “See? Him, too. Processing.”
Which left the other two members of the room. The ones who hadn’t been smart and had, in fact, been rather quiet. Karin flicked her gaze to Senton. She didn’t think she had anything to worry about with Ethan—he had a dad who needed healing, after all—but Senton was an unknown.
&
nbsp; “And you?” she said. “How are you taking this?”
“With great skepticism and disbelief.”
“Are you planning to tell anyone about what I can do?”
His eyes shifted. “The captain has disengaged communications, last I checked.”
So he had checked. Karin’s jaw ground tighter. She turned back to Marc and Soo-jin, her eyes catching each of theirs for a few seconds.
“And you?” she asked. “Are you planning to tell anyone?”
Silence took the bridge. She stared at them, aware of everyone’s attention on her. Their faces had gone stone sober, having lost all the previous minutes’ humor in a dead second. Her lungs constricted as the seconds ticked by, her ribs turning into a rigid tube. Fear sparked in her heart.
Marc and Soo-jin turned to each other. Soo-jin nodded.
“We won’t, for now at least. Senton? What’s your take?”
He curled his lip back. “My take is that I don’t like to have my communications blocked.”
“I will unblock them. I’m sure you understand why—”
“Oh, I understand just fine. I just really, really don’t like it.”
“That’s on me, then, not on her. And you’re stalling.” Marc narrowed his eyes. “Why?”
“Probably because there’s an Alliance patrol ship coming toward us,” Soo-jin commented, pointing at the screen.
A second later, the comms signal went off. The bottom of the screen flashed a notification for the incoming call.
The Alliance inspection team.
Karin’s heart rate picked up.
Shit. Shit, shit, shit, shit.
Her hands began to shake again, tension worming into the back of her shoulders.
Marc sighed, watching the screen with a kind of resignation. Then he turned back to Senton. “Ah, I see. You’re… bargaining. All right, what do you want?”
Understanding clicked at Marc’s tone, and anger sparked. Bargaining? No, Senton was blackmailing. And, by the way he spoke, he was no stranger to it. Only the faintest hint of a tremor underlay his tone.
“My wife, my daughter—I want them healed, if need be.”
Marc quirked a brow at her. “Karin?”
Her stomach did a flip. That… seemed oddly reasonable. She nodded stiffly.
