by K. Gorman
Daniel started gibbering as soon as the room came into sight, muttering something about Christ from what she could tell. He didn’t stop when Nomiki smacked him, but his volume lessened.
Cookie held the elevator door for Baik as he maneuvered out sideways with Marc across his shoulders. Her jaws tensed as Marc’s bruised face came into view, the swollen and discolored lump of his cheek gleaming in her light.
Gods, he didn’t look much different. Were the nanos really working? They had to get him to the ship. Portable nano could only do so much. The ship had enough to heal them all within hours—a benefit that she had Fallon paranoia to thank for. She doubted a regular civilian vessel would have stocked so much, but Fallon had. And Marc’s own professionalism had kept it topped up.
Soo-jin, hand still on Karin’s arm, caught her staring.
“He’ll be okay, Karin. Just give it time.”
She nodded. She knew that, logically. But knowing wouldn’t stop the worry.
The pitch black hallway turned into a grimy, shadowy concrete corridor. Then, at its end, the large, square-shaped pocket of the Cradle room.
They spotted the Cradle immediately, hooked right back up to the tank as if they hadn’t touched it.
Immediately, Daniel started up again.
“See? It’s there, just like I told you. Please, get me out of here. I have a family.”
Nomiki snorted. “Well, that’s a lie.”
“No, no—maybe not kids, but my sister—”
“Shut up.” Nomiki shoved him forward, then made a gesture to the Cradle. “Cookie, Soo, go check it out. Unhook it, if you can. We don’t want to risk weird displacement shit when we bring the real one over.”
Karin’s shoulders relaxed.
Good. So her sister was planning to take the Cradle with them.
“Should be easy enough.” Cookie bent down, craning his neck to see underneath. “Karin, could I get some light?”
With a thought, she split her orb in two, both spheres growing to the same size as the original, and floated one his way. Streaks and handmarks marred its dusty surface. Soo-jin and Jon went over to help him.
“Would the Shadow Cradle work?” Baik asked.
In the thin light, he looked even paler than before, but his gaze still held its sharpness.
“I don’t want to risk it,” Nomiki said. “If we’re going back over for the doctors, we might as well try for the real one, too.”
“Please let me go,” Daniel said again.
Nomiki didn’t hit him this time, but her glare silenced him. Blood and gore still coated her armor, gleaming wetly under Karin’s pale light. After a few seconds, they all heard a rumble from the other room.
She frowned. The elevator was going back up?
“What’s this?” Soo-jin pointed to a small kit on the Cradle’s opposite side. Two box-shaped machines with black displays inset into their fronts sat next to each other on the floor, along with a small, bulky bag with a pair of red and white wires hanging from its top. Several clear bottles with dark liquid gleamed in the shadows.
Daniel made a small noise. “It’s a… Christi, hang on, I don’t know the System word for it—the thing that makes electricity?”
“Battery pack?” Soo-jin supplied.
“No, not battery—battery is for storage. This is…”
“A generator?”
“…Maybe?”
Soo-jin nudged it with her toe. “Doesn’t look connected.”
A few clicks and nudges sounded under the Cradle. Cookie stood back up and looped the now-loose cables over its top.
“All set.”
“Good.” Nomiki pointed to the floor at the side. “Jon, move it to the ground there. Nice and slow.” Jon walked up to the Cradle and, with a small screech of metal, jerked it out of its mounting. Once he had set it down to the side, Nomiki snapped her gaze to the rest of them. “Let’s try to get through this without any more killing.”
Soo-jin’s eyebrow arched into her forehead when she turned her disbelieving gaze on Nomiki. “You? Not killing?”
“Shush. It can happen.” Nomiki slid her head back, rocking it back and forth on her neck as if to stretch. “Fuck me, I wish I’d strong-armed Lenora along for this ride.”
“Well, she’s busy hiding her son away and kicking some serious ass on Nova, from what I heard. Possibly eviscerating an ex-boyfriend.” Soo-jin paused. “I agree, though—one can never have enough genetically magical super soldiers in situations like this.”
Daniel made a small noise in his throat. Nomiki ignored him and waved over at her.
“Karin, get in position. I want you within reaching distance of the Cradle. With luck, the doctors will be close at hand.”
“And without luck?” she asked, stepping in place.
“Well, we’ll have the Cradle, anyway. If fighting starts, get them out of here. All right, move in, everyone. You, Daniel, come right here.” Nomiki grabbed him by the scruff of his collar and hauled him to Karin’s left, closer to the Cradle. With her other arm, she pulled out a single blade. “Karin, you’ll have to grab me for this. Everyone ready?”
As they all moved into place, Karin felt several sets of hands place themselves over her shoulders. With some pointed coaxing—in the form of a jerk on his neckline from Nomiki, which resulted in a yelp when he noticed the knife she wielded—Daniel put a hesitant grip on her forearm. Karin looked around, took a quick count, then reached out with her right to slide her hand around Marc’s limp elbow.
“Ready?”
“Yep. Fire when ready.”
She nodded. A flutter of butterfly wings started in the pit of her stomach, followed quickly by the tangy sweetness of vomit. She forced the feeling back, focused on the people around her, and pulled.
Energy cracked through her sternum like a whip. The room crashed more than spun into the warp, the sound like a barreling train, or a storm. A momentary dizziness pulsed through her as the two realities shifted, darkness bleeding and blending together like ink in dark water.
She heard a voice, male, stiff and slurring, and oddly familiar. Light washed over her. In the next instant, warmth pricked her skin, replacing the cold absence of the Shadow world. The voice cut off, seeming mid-sentence, and she heard a stir around her, two shouts of alarm.
When it settled, she was staring straight into the steel-gray eyes of the massive, cyborg Centauri leader she’d seen on the bridge of the corvette, and at least ten of his cyborgs stood around them, all getting into fighting poses.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The pit dropped from her stomach. She stumbled back, sucking in a ragged, surprised breath, eyes widening as her gaze swiveled up to take him in.
Oh, gods, we are so fucked.
Blind fear stirred in her gut, and she let out a quiet whimper. The man seemed even more massive in the lab. He shouldn’t have—the ceiling was taller here—but he did. It felt like he took up her entire world. Like he was about to crush them all.
Nomiki shoved her back, putting herself between him and Karin. Karin yelped when he jerked at the movement, and she ducked behind her sister until she heard a quiet chuckle.
“What do we have here?” he rumbled. The tenor of his voice was deep, pleased. Peeking over her shoulder, she saw the sparkle of triumph gleam in his light eyes. “Another kitten to add to my collection?”
Nomiki looked small compared to him. Tiny. Most of that was her stature—her sister was a relatively compact package, and this guy looked related to a rhinoceros—but part of it was her stance. She stood with a slight crouch, knees bent, legs splayed, her back tilted forward, ready for action.
Karin couldn’t see her sister’s face, but she could imagine the sharp glare she was giving him.
“No answer?” he said after a few seconds. He leaned back. Machinery whirred, and she tensed as he brought his arm up. The gun and knife components in the middle clicked and rotated, transforming into a deadly weapon. “Very well, then…”
&
nbsp; “Wait!” Nomiki flung out her arm, fingers splayed, palm held toward him. “Let’s talk. Please.”
A shock went through Karin, first at the ‘please,’ and second at the genuine pleading tone that accompanied it.
Her hands started to shake.
They were in trouble.
As she looked around, her initial fear dissipating into a steady tension in her body, she began to see what her sister had understood in an instant.
There were at least twelve Centauri in the room, all with their weapons ready, but none of them had fired yet. Takahashi and Shinji stood in the far corner, about as far from the entrance as possible, with two cyborg guards pointing weapons at them.
They had not been in the middle of something, dicking around with the Cradle. They had been waiting for her and her friends to show up.
This had been an ambush, not a coincidence.
And, by the way everyone was spread out through the room, as opposed to gathering around the entranceway, they hadn’t expected them to come through the door.
Reports of Karin’s teleportation ability had spread fast.
I need to warp us out.
She swallowed hard, meeting Takahashi’s gaze across the room. Though his shoulders were stiffer than she usually saw, he had a calm, placid expression. Behind him, Shinji had not been successful in hiding the mix of fear and apprehension that so clearly warred on his features. He met her gaze, too, and she caught a shadow of bruising that marred his cheek before he jerked his attention back to the weapon pointed at his chest.
Then, the cyborg holding it turned, and the blood drained from her face as his stare met and held hers.
It was the one she had attacked on the ship. The one who had beaten Marc into a bloody, unconscious pulp. Her eyes widened, but she managed to stop the whimper that tried to escape her throat.
Lieutenant Colonel Tyrell. That was his name. Her brain siphoned it from her interview with the leader and latched onto it like a dog with a piece of red meat. Tyrell’s dark eyes were direct and unflinching. Her fist clenched by her side, shaking. From this far away, she couldn’t tell if the dent she’d made with the gravball bat had been fixed, but the bandage from earlier was gone and the patch of metal on his chest appeared whole again.
Below all the fear, a surprisingly violent surge of anger sparked. She dragged her gaze away, clenching her fist tighter as it threatened to flood her senses.
She needed to focus.
Someone drew closer to her back. She leaned into them, already recognizing the mix of blood, sweat, and fabric soap that was Marc. Another movement pressed his limp shoulder to hers, but she didn’t think Baik was trying to crowd her. He hadn’t touched her yet, which he’d need to do for a warp, but his closeness set up warning bells in her mind, and she tilted her head to check the Centauri soldiers behind them.
Sure enough, they had been flanked. Jon was filling in the gap at her left. Nomiki’s second knife was in his grip as he slid into a defensive position, squaring off against the Centauri.
Daniel took that moment to realize that Nomiki had let him go. He scrambled away with a wordless cry, shoes scraping on the floor.
The leader glanced down at his retreating form in a way similar to how she’d seen people look at cockroaches. Then, his attention turned back to Nomiki, giving her another long assessment.
For several long, tense seconds, the whole room appeared to hold its collective breath. No one moved.
Then, he shifted back, going into his former position.
“Okay, then,” he said. “Let us talk.”
“Thank you.” Nomiki didn’t relax, but she did straighten. Then, she answered his previous question. “My name is Nomiki Makos. Subject 105 of the Eurynome Project, which was carried out in this lab. Currently under employ of the Fallon Imperial Military.” She paused and turned her head. “I believe you already know my sister, Karin.”
Karin stiffened as his gaze flicked back to her, feeling his attention hit her like a third rail.
“Yes. It would seem that she’s not just a pilot.” His voice roved deeper, his tone and lingering gaze promising a more thorough interrogation later on. She resisted the tremor that threatened to engulf her nerves, meeting his stare. “You were both born in this lab?”
As he spoke, she realized that the woman she’d seen him with was absent. She wondered where she was. Upstairs, perhaps? With the ships? She’d looked like a second-in-command.
“We grew up here, anyway. Fun little history of childhood experimentation.” Nomiki gave the side of the Cradle a mock-affectionate pat just above its Eurynome Project logo, her hand making a hollow sound on its pre-fab. “So, who are you? And how did you come to decorate the vacuous halls of my former torture palace?”
For a long moment, it didn’t look as though he would answer. She remembered that he hadn’t given her a name during her earlier interrogation, and she hadn’t pressed, fully happy to fly under his radar as a ‘prisoner of least interest.’ Now, however, he was giving them far more attention. Like a spider that had found a particularly interesting set of jewels in its web.
He probably hadn’t known what he was looking for when he’d hit the lab, but he’d found them. And he wasn’t about to let them go.
“Azrikam Devnath Leisler, designated Grand Regent of Arms of the Menassi Tri-Quad Alliance.” Karin tensed as he took a step forward. He didn’t offer his hand or any other greeting. Instead, he’d drawn himself up, arms crossing over his broad chest as came to some sort of decision. “Mendell will know what to do with you. You will be transferred to my ships and shown the comfort and protection of our forces until we can hand you over.”
“My sister and most of her crew left your care in dire need of nano treatment. I don’t think we’ll take you up on your offer of comfort.”
Karin stiffened. At her side, Soo-jin and Cookie were straight and rigid, their bodies as stiff as the trees in the forest outside. A high tension fluctuated in the room. She could feel her arms and legs shake. Her breath came in slow, shallow increments. The entire room was still, quiet. Every person in the room hung on their words.
Leisler gave her a slip of a smile.
“You don’t have a choice.”
The words felt like a punch in the gut. Karin sucked in a quiet breath, eyes going wide. She fought to wrangle the fear that threatened to entrap her muscles. It felt like she was in the path of a guillotine. Her eyes darted around, glancing frantically over the stony, imperious faces of the Centauri forces, each gun she saw pushing a little more adrenaline into her system. She felt as if they were at some breaking point—that the blade was going to drop any second.
Her power beat a frenetic pulse through her nerves. Though her breathing sped up, she remained rooted to the spot beside Nomiki. She didn’t so much as glance at the large, bulky form of the Cradle that loomed in her peripheral vision, not wanting to tip their hand.
“Really?” Nomiki’s voice drawled the word, the tone edged deep with a familiar sarcasm. At her angle, Karin couldn’t see her sister’s eyebrow twitch, but she’d faced her enough times to picture it. “I just finished killing my way through the first floor. Do you want me to start here?”
He sneered, clearly unimpressed by her words. “An attitude like that will do you well in Centauri.”
Nomiki laughed. “Don’t give a shit. We aren’t coming with you.”
“Like I said, you don’t have a choice.”
“And like I said—do you really want me to start killing my way through here? I’m wearing your people’s blood like a fucking sheet. Here’s my offer: give us our two scientists, and we’ll leave without killing anyone else.”
“Come quietly, or we’ll kill your two precious scientists.”
“Then kill them—if we can’t get them, they’re better to us dead than alive.”
“Miki!” Karin dropped her jaw in shock.
A strangled yell came up from the back of the room—Shinji. “Hey—ack!”
Karin glanced over just in time to see Takahashi elbow him in the ribs.
Leisler chuckled again, then spoke with a wry, disbelieving tone. “And if I give you these two men, you will vanish from my sight, taking them with you, and you will leave me the building?”
His tone was too light, its edge too soft. Karin could feel the stares of the rest of the room pinned to her and her sister’s neck. She forced herself to take a slow breath, to focus. Something, she felt, was about to happen.
“I’m giving you an out,” her sister said, her voice terse, all good nature lost on her face. “Take it. You can walk. No one else has to die today.”
“Says the woman wearing my men’s blood like a sheet.” His expression twisted when it turned back to them, an ugly snarl sharpening his features into stark points. “We are Centauri. We do not walk. And you—you were never going to leave this room alive!”
Machinery whirred. The knife end of his arm snapped into place in a blur. With a speed she hadn’t thought possible given his mechanized bulk, he lunged at them, bringing it down. Nomiki shot forward.
Metal screamed.
She had just enough time to watch her sister catch his strike with the glowing edge of her blade, legs splayed, body dipping with the strain of the force as she braced it with both hands, before Nomiki was yelling at her.
“Karin! Go!”
Metal crashed behind her, and someone bumped into her, an elbow catching her back—Jon, fending off an attack from behind, Nomiki’s second blade whirling in his hand. Everyone was moving. Hands reached for her. She rocked back, twisted, felt Nomiki start to move in front of her. A subsonic drone hummed through the air as she turned, putting the Cradle in her jerking vision. She felt the vibration gather, every hair on her body standing at once as she twisted her step into a lunge, calling on her power.
