by K. Gorman
She let her hand drop.
Then, Nomiki was there, laser-blade singing with burnt blood.
She sliced through the man’s arm in one fluid motion, then turned the blade on him. Blood splattered across her front as it plunged through his chest and sawed down, part of the metal sparking from where it had been damaged during her fight with Leisler.
The cyborg’s forearm flopped down her front and hit the floor with a wet thump. Her sister snapped her head to the side as the rest of the man collapsed, jerking her knife out of his abdomen. “Go!”
At first, Karin thought she meant her—but hands grabbed her from the side. She found herself being picked up. Her heartbeat stuttered against her ribs as she jerked, then stopped when Jon’s face quickly loomed in her view. She shrieked as the movement jostled her injured shoulder. She wrapped her good arm around his neck as he lunged forward.
Blaster rounds cracked into the place they’d just been standing.
A quick check of the room revealed Leisler slumped on the other side of the room, his face grim. Blood covered his front, and a mass of bleeding and blackened score marks didn’t leave Nomiki’s damage to the imagination. A surge of new soldiers flooded the doorway, a variety of weaponry decorating their bodies. Leisler lurched to his feet, giving a hollow snarl of rage as he pointed his one good arm toward Karin.
Weapons fire began to crack in earnest.
In the next second, they were lunging over the bed barricade. Jon tucked her close to his chest and lowered her to the ground. She felt hands catch her, bring her down—then more as people grabbed her and held on.
As the crack of fire roared, Nomiki began smacking her hip.
“Go, go, go!”
Right. The teleport.
Coming back to herself, she did a quick check, made sure one of her hands had a firm grip on Marc, focused, and threw them into the warp.
The world swung, twisted. Colors and sounds ran together. She felt a prick of awareness at the edge of her mind, a little divet of pain. The lining of her intestines crawled with spiders.
Then, they were through.
A bright flash erupted in the Shadow realm. They all jerked as a shot cracked into the wall next to them, the burnt smell of metal and ozone lifting into the air in its aftermath. At her side, Nomiki jerked to her feet, whirring to face an unseen enemy.
But there were only the Shadows, watching from their staggered spots around the room, unmoving and passive.
For a few seconds, everyone breathed. They all stared up at the slight, smoldering glow of the blast mark.
Finally, Soo-jin broke the silence by rousing herself to her feet and letting out a stressed, ragged sigh.
“Well. That went well.”
Chapter Thirty
Karin jerked in her seat, pain smacking through her knee as her legs thumped the underside of the Shadow Nemina’s dashboard. The holoscreens shivered in front of her, displaying the engine and comms metrics—the latter of which they still had to figure out—and a quick glance around showed that the rest of the seats were empty. The craft rocked and jiggled, the high-pitched whine around them indicating they were traveling at high speed through atmosphere.
I must have fallen asleep in my chair.
It was inevitable, and she’d known it had been coming. Hells, everyone had known it had been coming. Even if the exertion from all of the warping and the fighting hadn’t caught up to her, the double dose of nanos would have, no matter how much Hyperspace Mouse she consumed. The last few hours had been accomplished on a pissy, stomach-gnawing mix of determination and adrenaline. And she’d added another fracture and a blaster shot to the mix.
She flexed her hands, mentally examining the numb twinge that came from her right shoulder and bicep.
The nanos would be at it for a while.
Soo-jin had flown the Nemina well. Karin knew she would—she and Marc had, after all, taken it out on predetermined paths without her as the official pilot and navigator. That’s how Sirius operated, mostly. If one already had a programmed course, the computer would do it for them. Many didn’t even bother with a pilot. Navigators often made extra cash by selling custom preprogrammed route lines.
It had just been lucky for her job prospects that Marc and Soo-jin went further off the beaten path for their scrounges.
After lift-off, she had taken a good series of surveillance recordings as they’d gone over the Shadow world variant of the encampment the Centauri had set up for the ruins. Shadows had been standing around it, looking from above like spokes on a wheel as their shadows stretched out away from the cluster of lights. The weathered stone faces had taken on an alien cast, each side illuminated by floodlights.
Guess the Centauri were having the same Shadow-induced dream about the ruins as the rest of the universe was having.
They’d landed ten kilometers away, in a field that looked like it hadn’t been used in the past century. She’d taken them back over to the real world, hit the camouflage button, and had Soo-jin put them on another preprogrammed path.
Then, almost everyone had vacated the bridge—most not to sleep or rest up, but to loiter about the makeshift science lab in the Rec room while the two scientists pottered around with the Cradle.
She had stayed in the bridge.
“Eos.”
She shivered as the name slid through her mind, its presence as physical as the hum of blood through her veins. Without looking, she knew precisely where the Shadow was. Could see it vividly silhouetted against the scuffed, dim surface of the pre-fab wall that held the storage space ahead of the first cabin, its depthless black body a three-dimensional representation of the void that skewed with her senses. She could even smell it, though she was hard-pressed to put a real-life scent to it. It was more like smelling a texture—dry, like fabric left in the sun, but tasteless, with a hint of the chill that had been in the Shadow world.
The light at her back moved. In her peripheral vision, the Shadow slid closer. She breathed a shallow breath as one ragged, wispy hand slipped over her forearm. Its touch moved below the surface of her skin, stroking the flesh and bone beneath like drifting silk. A connection opened in the back of her mind.
She froze as its touch deepened, then everything in her stiffened as Tia’s voice came out of it.
“Come find me, little light.”
The sentence sounded like a distorted recording. She could still recognize Tia’s voice in it, but it felt like a dial had been turned on a soundboard, making the words string out in a low, deep pitch like some of those voice-masking audio interviews she’d heard on the feeds.
“I’m trying. We’re going to Brazil right now.”
It had been the logical choice—the only choice. Even if they had wanted to risk setting up the Cradle in the Shadow world and hooking her up there, Leisler had broken the tank, and Brazil held the only other compound for which they had an address.
She sat up in her chair, one arm itching to reach for the controls—but the route maps were plainly visible on the screen.
A part of her was beginning to suspect that this wasn’t a normal visitation. The ship was too quiet, and she realized she hadn’t heard even a murmur of voices coming from the back. Marc should still be under nano sedation, and Baik had likely retired to his bunk with his dose, but the rest—Soo-jin, Nomiki, Jon, Cookie, and both doctors—had been occupying the rear half of the Nemina with a restless urgency while they ran a number of tests and dredged through files.
She guessed, by the silence, that she was either asleep, or had slid back into the Shadow world.
Or a mix of both. In fact, that was more probable, though her being in the Shadow world raised even more questions about how it all worked. If she’d already taken the Shadow Nemina and had been flying it in the real world where the real Nemina was, could she duplicate it again? Just how far did it go?
The Shadow’s fingers pressed inward, their silky-smooth touch tingling deeper into her flesh. A twinge started at the back
of her mind. After a second, she felt the Shadow connect again.
“Tia, did you send the E-Twenty reports over to CC, yet?”
An image of the lab room flashed across her mind. She twisted around, an action that would have dislodged a normal human’s grip, but only made the Shadow’s upper arm and elbow disappear into her chest and shoulder. It felt like a slick eel wriggling straight through her chest.
“No. We’re still waiting on your brother. When is he going to finish with the subject twenty-three exam cloud?
“He’s been busy. Something about corporate ass-kissing. He’ll be back next week. CC will get the reports next week, then.”
The sentences ran together like a recording at double speed, the voices distorted between Tia and Elliot.
“We should talk.
“No, Elliot, we—”
“Tia?” she asked.
The voices cut out like a snipped tape. Karin felt the Shadow jerk, the sensation like a thousand blades of grass squirming inside her flesh.
“Karin Makos. Program Eos, splinter success Eurynome code.” This time, the Shadow’s tone was normal, though it said her name in a neutral cadence, as if it were reading it off of a data screen.
The world seemed to flicker. The itch intensified in her head.
In the next second, she was in the lab, and Tia was in front of her, a hand on her shoulder.
“Hello, Karin Makos. Did you get out of your predicament?”
“Yes,” she said. “Thank you for your help.”
Tia didn’t say anything for a while. She hadn’t frozen, as she had before, but by the way her head tilted and her eyes closed, Karin got the impression that she had her mind on other things.
“We found a Cradle,” she went on when the doctor didn’t speak. “I don’t think it’s yours. Looks empty. We have a couple scientists working on it.”
Tia didn’t move, but Karin detected that something had changed. She waited, the seconds ticking away in this place. Everything was quiet, like a hush that rang at the ends of her senses.
After a few minutes, the woman opened her eyes into slits.
“No. You would have known if you’d found mine. You would have known if you’d found mine. You would have known if—”
Tia cut herself off with a visible jerk of her head. She didn’t look at Karin.
Silence rose between them.
“Are you all ri—”
“Fine,” Tia said stiffly. “It’s just the—programming.” She swallowed, the action seeming greatly exaggerated in the space. “I’ve been here a… very long time. Carry on. Don’t mind me.”
Uh huh. Programming, eh?
She decided not to ask. Tia looked so tired—so very tired.
“We’re heading to Brazil. Well,” she quickly amended herself, remembering the route she’d set. “We just had to uncamouflage to send a message, so we’re heading off course first to shake any tails, but once we’re sure we’re not being followed, we’re heading to Brazil.”
Cookie and Baik had booted up the Nemina’s old laser burst comms, and they’d lucked out on finding a patch of clear sky. It had taken only fifteen minutes for the craft’s long-distance scans to recognize the silhouette of the Alliance ship Icarus. After that, it had been a quick press of a button to line up with their receiver lens, then splash them with a laser.
They’d planned it as a one-way transmission—due to the logistics of orbit, atmosphere, and the difficulty of finding the tiny speck of the Nemina against the rumbling scrub of terrain she was currently flying over, they hadn’t expected a response—but Icarus had surprised them with a quick transmission, beaming an acknowledgment down into the Nemina’s receiver barely a minute after.
The Centauri, of course, were another matter. The doctors had confirmed that they had seen the Brazilian address that had been glued to the back of the Cradle, so it was just a matter of time before they figured out it wasn’t just a manufacturer’s stamp and followed up on it., especially since they had access to the Nemina’s files. Unfortunately, Karin had a feeling that time would be sooner rather than later, which was why she’d only set them off course a tiny bit.
The faster they got to Brazil, the better.
She needed to get that Cradle.
Gods, Tia better be there…
And if she wasn’t?
Her statement was met with more silence. She flexed her fingers as she waited, then stopped when her shoulder twinged.
Tia was staring at her again. She hadn’t been a moment ago. The attention made her feel uneasy, but she held her eyes.
“Good,” she said. “Good.”
The world seemed to fade after her words. The doctor’s eyes closed again, as if she were dismissing her. A trickle of that nausea came back, eating into her stomach, and gravity seemed to shift and flip.
The next thing Karin knew, there was a hand on her wrist, and the Nemina was jiggling with a bout of turbulence.
She jumped at the touch, thwacking her legs once again on the underside of the dashboard.
Then, she turned to the side, looked to the hand that held hers, and felt her face split into a wide smile. “Marc!”
He sat in the co-pilot’s chair with a stiff posture, gaze slipping over her in much the same assessing way hers was doing to him. His face looked better. Still battered and bruised, but the swelling had gone down, and the shape looked… less broken. A dark patch of deep purple bruising lined the right eye and most of his cheek and jaw on both sides, and his lip mashed together on one side, but both eyes were bright and clear.
“Hey, babe.”
She leaned over the console separating them, one hand hesitatingly going up to his face. “How do you feel?”
By the way his lip twitched, he meant to return her concern with one of his trademark grins, but it turned into a grimace instead. He groaned and sagged toward the navigator’s chair, his movements stiff and slow.
“Ask me again in six hours.” He let out a breath, then his gaze turned to her—or, more precisely, her shoulder, which bumped up under her clothes, thick with obvious bandaging. “How are you?”
She gave a weak snort and wiggled her fingers under his, enjoying the sensation of his hand around hers. “Pro tip: don’t pick fights with cyborgs.”
“Yeah, no kidding.” He winced as the smile twinged another part of his face, and the humor dropped from her expression like a stone.
She brushed her thumb against the side of his hand, gaze once again roving over the broken parts of his face. “Suns, Marc. I’m so sorry.”
Another grunt. This time, without the pain. “Not your fault.”
“I guess we both have a predilection toward punching metal people.”
“And getting broken by them.”
His left hand found her right on the armrest. He picked it up gingerly, smoothing his fingers over her knuckles. She stayed still, watching. Feeling. Despite his injuries, and the distinct sausage-like quality his fingers had taken on, he had a gentle touch. As he examined her, she took the time to get a better look at his face.
The glow of the screen lit it better than a few seconds ago, but the light blue and white washed out much of the discoloration. His swelling had gone down, but his cheeks still looked bloated and puffy. A zag of healing skin near his left eyebrow gleamed in the light as if it were wet. Close to his mouth, another piece of skin crimped as if it had been caught under a fold in a clothing iron.
She stared at it, a knot of emotion loosening in the muscles behind her face.
“Is the nano still on?” she cringed inwardly at the rawness in her voice. “Do you need another boost?”
He read the real question she was asking. “No. I’m as numb as a tiger at a tooth extraction.”
Nano provided painkillers. Logically, she knew that the shipboard nano would still be working—it usually could work for five hours before needing a boost—but seeing his face, and the stiffness with which he moved…
He brought her hand up
and pressed his lips against it. “I’m fine. Don’t worry about me.”
She snorted. “You’re not fine. Your face is still broken. But you will be fine. I know that. I just—”
“I know. I know.” He tipped his head toward her so that his temple rested against her upper arm, his eyes reading the screen. “Are we… are we over Africa?”
She gave the top of his head a pat with her other hand, then extended it to a caress down the side. “Good eye. And yes. I have this completely unscientific theory that the geothermic temperature of land masses helps mask the ion residue we’re leaving behind, as opposed to the relatively cooler temperatures of bodies of water, just in case they did track us from residue.”
There was a pause while he processed this. His eyebrow twitched. He opened his mouth, taking the type of breath she recognized in both himself and Cookie as about to launch a counterpoint.
“But ion trails are—”
“Shh.” She put a gentle finger on his mouth. “There was also a Centauri flight school party happening in Northern Europe that I wanted no part of.”
He removed her finger from his lips and gave her a ‘look.’
She smiled, swinging her dangling leg, and curled her fingers around his grasping hand. “I told you it was unscientific.”
“You did.” He let out a breath, then peered around, taking in the rest of the bridge. “Is this… is this my ship?”
“That depends on how picky you are. I took this over from the other world. We’ve been calling it the Shadow Nemina.”
The small quiet, and the pinched, consternated expression on his face, was all too familiar. She gave him another pat.
“Yeah, I’m having trouble wrapping my head around it, too.”
“No kidding.” He paused. “Is it an exact duplicate? I mean, I haven’t explored too much, but…” He made a gesture to the bridge. She followed his gaze.
“It looks the same, I know. It had some weird lighting in the other world which made the colors a little fucked, but—” she shrugged. “That appears to have cleared up.”
