by Gorman, K.
He perked up. “Really? And then someone will come?”
“Yep,” she said, forcing herself to smile through her doubt. “And if anyone on the Ozark had any relatives on station…?”
He shook his head.
“Well, someone will come.” She busied herself with the dashboard again, establishing the connection with Caishen’s docking program. “Your people will be okay.”
“Are you guys going to leave me here?” he asked.
She froze. That had been a loose plan—stations were much better-equipped to deal with strays than a single ship was—but it didn’t sound like Caishen was up for another mouth. They may be stretched thin as it was.
“We’ll see,” she said. “We’ll see.”
Chapter 13
The inspection crew was surly, brutish, and insisted on examining every square centimeter of the ship—right on down to the cupboards in Mess, the laundry, and the underneath of everyone’s beds.
That last made Soo-jin raise her eyebrows, at least. She stood over the burly man, arms crossed over her chest as he put his head down and flashed his light underneath.
“Shit,” she said. “Wish I’d put something exciting down there.”
He ignored her, moving on to check her locker, and then behind the sofa she had on the opposite wall. She followed him around like a territorial dog.
Finally, he seemed satisfied. He gave a nod to another team member as they passed by, then addressed Marc in the hallway.
“You’re clear. Hopper will meet you now.”
“Great.” Marc shook the man’s hand, though the action seemed a bit begrudging on his part. “I hear it’s bad?”
“That’s one word for it,” the man said. “We usually use more colorful ones.”
Something bumped against her waist. She put a hand down, closed her fingers around Ethan’s shoulder, and squeezed.
Soo-jin wandered over, sending a scathing look down the hall as Marc escorted the inspector back to the airlock door. “You ever get the feeling you’re being ignored?”
“Yeah,” Karin said. “Come on. Let’s see what all the fuss is about.”
Soo-jin looked down at Ethan’s head. “He coming, too?”
She shrugged. “Better than being alone. I don’t think they’re going to show us anything he hasn’t seen.”
“Not necessarily a good thing, that.” She tilted her head, catching Ethan’s eyes. “You okay with that, kid?”
“I’m not staying,” he said.
“Guess that settles it.” Soo-jin snapped a hair tie from her wrist and pulled it loosely around her dreads. “All right. Let’s go.” She gestured for them to go first.
Karin steered Ethan beside her. He swerved, ducking her grasp of his shoulder, then fell back into step beside her. As they drew close to the door, the conversation from outside came to them.
“—not take any chances. If one of them comes off your ship, we will shoot. We don’t care who it is.”
“You just saw my ship. All of my ship. There’s no one else.”
The man’s gaze flickered to Karin and Ethan as they stepped over the sill, then to Soo-jin behind them. His jaw tightened visibly.
“They can change in an instant,” he said. “I’ve seen it happen.”
“We’ll be careful.”
“You better be.” The man backed off a step, half-turning to join the rest of his team farther down the corridor—but he seemed to think better of it. He paused for a second and jerked his chin in their direction. “The weak always go first.”
And then he was gone, calling to his team as he jogged to catch up.
Soo-jin watched him go with an ugly expression. “Remind me to stab that man before I leave.”
“I’d prefer it if you didn’t,” Marc said. “Though I will help you hide the body if it comes to that.”
“See? This is why I like my boss.” She frowned and looked around the empty corridor. “Wasn’t there supposed to be another guy here to show us around?”
“He got caught up. We’re to meet him on C-deck.” Marc waved his netlink. “I’ve got a map. Shall we?”
Soo-jin stepped forward. “Yes. Let’s.”
Caishen was a post-war station that had been commissioned by the Alliance as a relay point for the outer planets. Once they got out of the metal berthing corridors, the main halls had high, arched ceilings, matte-gray walls, and a shiny layer of slate-black flooring that had only slightly more give to it than the metal she’d been walking on this far.
It was also completely empty.
Normally, in stations along the main shipping routes, the halls would have been crammed with shops and vendors—it was how stations made a good chunk of their money—but Caishen was not a popular station. The most action it saw came from the regular mining ships that grazed the outer asteroids for metals and minerals. The rest, scrounge-ships like the Nemina and passenger vessels like the Ozark, were loose change.
But she hadn’t seen many docked. The sensor had said nine, but how many of those were permanent docks? Had people left? After what had happened, she could see why they might. Enlil was the closest planet, and she’d bet a lot of the station regulars had family there.
They came upon the first human a full five minutes later, speed-walking from one door in the big hallway to a door on the opposite side. By the way he turned his head their way, he must have seen them coming, but he didn’t stop.
A few seconds later, he was gone.
“Friendly lot they’ve got here,” Soo-jin commented.
“Let’s assume he’s under a lot of stress and actually much nicer under normal circumstances,” Marc said.
They both turned to look at him.
“Or not,” he said. “Never mind.”
Then a shout echoed down the hall. “Hey! You there! You the Nemina?”
A man waved at them as he approached, the netlink in his hand glowing. He had dark skin—not as dark as Marc’s, but more the color of an unroasted chestnut. When he got closer, they could see he had a thin mustache.
“Hopper?” Marc asked, shaking his hand.
“He sent me down, actually. They’re having trouble—no, never mind. You’ll see soon. I’m Netahl. You know about the Shadows?”
“We do.”
He hesitated. “Did anyone on your ship…?”
“No. We got them all.”
Netahl sucked in a breath. “You are lucky, then.” Then his gaze dropped to Ethan. “What I’m about to show you is not a pretty sight. Are you sure…?”
Karin clutched his shoulder, drawing him close. “He stays.”
“He came from a ship that was not lucky,” Marc explained.
Netahl’s face sobered. “I see. This way, then.”
He led them into the door they’d seen the other man disappear through earlier, and they climbed a set of stairs before segueing into a single elevator.
“This station is not big,” he explained as he pressed the button for the top floor. “Enforcement and operation take up the entire top floor so that they are easy to get to. These elevators connect through all of the levels.”
Karin watched the overhead display clock through the levels. “Tell us about the Shadows.”
He hesitated. “I thought you already knew…?”
“We’ve been in the outer range,” Marc said. “We only know what we’ve experienced, and then what we saw on Ethan’s ship.”
At the sound of his name, Ethan’s jaw tightened. His hands balled up into fists at his side.
“And we weren’t there for long,” she added. “No news from the relay, either.”
“Ah,” Netahl said.
At first, that seemed like all he would say. He stood silent for a few moments. The elevator dinged at their floor, and he stepped out into a new hallway, this one much smaller than the last, and held the door open for them.
Then, he paused.
“I was on the night shift,” he said. “Data entry, mostly. We didn’t have a b
ig ship in, so there wasn’t much happening on the cameras. That’s how I saw the first Shadows.” His jaw tightened. “I thought someone was playing a prank on me—you know, with video manipulation. They don’t look real.”
“We got one on camera, too,” Marc said.
Karin shuddered. That had been her Shadow they’d gotten on camera.
“Well, I didn’t believe it at first. But then I heard screams. Just one or two at first, and they cut off very quickly.” The muscles in his jaw and neck tensed, and he darted a glance down to Ethan before he continued. “I called it in after that. We managed to save some people. The others…”
“Black-eyed?”
He nodded. “Yes. We put them… well, you’ll see.”
The grim set to his face sent another shiver down her spine. Her own jaw tensed, and her back stiffened.
Then they got to the next corridor.
A series of windows slanted outward from the hallway, looking down on the room below. A single glance through one of them sent her stomach churning.
It had been a gravball court once. She could tell by the high markers on the walls and the way the nets were tucked into the four corners. It was spacious, with the same matte-gray walls as the rest of the ship and a floor that at least looked like the wooden ones she’d seen on Belenus.
It was absolutely full of people.
Not hard to tell that they had lost the fight with the Shadows. She recognized it in the clothing they wore, and in how they moved. They were listless, scattered about the room almost at random, except for a couple of groups who bunched loosely at the doors.
Ethan went ramrod-straight beside her.
Marc pointed toward one of the groups. “What happens when you open the doors?”
“Not much.” Netahl shrugged. “Hopper’s thinking of lowering them in soon.”
“Do they eat?” Karin asked.
He flashed her an aggrieved look. “No. We’ve tried to force food into them, but…”
“They don’t seem to be starving,” Soo-jin commented. “Have you tested them?”
“Oh—yes. Ehm…” Again, Netahl glanced down at Ethan before continuing. “They appear to be in stasis.”
Karin frowned. “I saw one menstruating.”
He shrugged again. “I don’t know. That’s just what I was told.”
She exchanged a look with Soo-jin, who rolled her eyes and threw her hands up. “I guess, even with possession, some female processes don’t go away.”
Marc cleared his throat. “Have any of them… done anything?”
“No. They seem restricted to basic functions. They can open doors, pick things up—that sort of thing.”
“The ones on his ship were attracted to light.”
“And people,” Karin added.
“Yes. Light, children, and people.” Netahl’s smile was grim. “And in that order, it would seem.”
Looking down, she tried not to speculate how they’d come to that conclusion. Some of the people down there were a lot smaller than the others.
Ethan grabbed her hand and tugged, getting her attention. He raised his eyebrows when she looked down, then nodded meaningfully to the windows.
She raised her own eyebrows, then frowned, moving closer to the pane for a better look.
He tugged again. “They’re attracted to light.”
Everyone glanced over when he spoke. Karin felt heat rise on the back of her neck.
“Yes, I know.” She forced a smile. “Marc used some flares when we got you.”
Ethan narrowed his eyes at her, then dropped his head, saying nothing more.
“Do you know much about the Shadows?” Marc asked. “How they come? Why?”
Netahl shrugged. “Only that they come, and that we can kill them.”
“Do you know if anyone had a dream before they came?” Soo-jin asked. “With some kind of old ruins in it?”
Before he could answer, a scuffing sound at the end of the hall drew their attention. Several men appeared, outfitted nearly as heavily as the inspections team had been.
“I had a dream,” said the leader of the group. “It was weird as shit.”
Chapter 14
“We don’t really talk about dreams here,” Hopper said after he had introduced himself. “People consider it unmanly, somehow.”
He was the commanding officer of station security and, since the captain of station operations was standing down in the room below them with the others, he was also in charge of everything else. He shook each of their hands, including Ethan’s. Behind him, the other two were almost cookie-cutter replicas of the inspection team from earlier—big, burly, with matching dour looks. One kept an eye on the corridor as Hopper moved amongst the group, chatting.
“Wasn’t the founder of dream analysis a man?” Karin said.
Hopper gave her a broad-toothed smile. “I have no idea.”
“So tell us about your dream.” Soo-jin glanced hard at the security officers. “In a manly way, of course.”
“Not much to it, actually. The ruins were the big part, and she already said them.” Hopper jerked a thumb in Karin’s direction.
“Were they in a field?” Karin asked. “With stars?”
“There she goes again, telling me my dream,” he said to Soo-jin. “I don’t even get to say anything.”
Karin rolled her eyes. “Did anyone else have this dream?”
Hopper turned and raised an eyebrow at the two men. “Boys?”
They looked to each other. Then, simultaneously, they nodded.
“What’d I tell you?” he said. “It was weird as shit. I think my wife had it, too…”
“Were there other people in your dreams?” Marc asked. “Or were you alone?”
“Just me and some hunks of rock.” He gestured to the men behind him. “Like usual. Boys?”
Again, the two men looked to each other.
Again, they nodded.
Ethan let go of Karin’s hand and moved to the window, leaning into the slanted glass. She watched him for a second, long enough to gauge the emotion on his face, then returned to the conversation.
Soo-jin had rounded on the two grunts, a hand on her hip. “Do you guys speak?”
Their attention switched to her.
They nodded.
The ghost of a smile traced across her lips.
When Karin glanced back over, Hopper was staring at her.
“What does it mean, anyway?” he asked. “This dream?”
He held less of a smile in his eyes now, and his jovial accent had dropped when he had asked. Her own spirits dipped as she met his eyes, serious.
“We’re not sure,” Marc answered. “We just noticed it. Thought it might matter, given the nature of our… enemy.”
His mouth twisted on the last word as if it left a sour taste on his tongue.
“You mean, ‘weird things go with weird things’?” Hopper’s face also twisted. “Yeah, I can see what you mean. You might be grasping at straws, but aren’t we all?”
“We’re hoping to go to Enlil, get news there. Have you heard anything out of there?”
“Not since the incident.” He shook his head. “Most of the others took off for there, too, but it’s too early to get a ping back yet.”
“I see. Well, we’d like to get some supplies while we’re here. Load up. That all right?”
“So long’s you got the cash, you’re good.” He gestured to the window. “It’s not like they’re eating anything.”
A small noise from Ethan drew their attention over. He gave them a small, hesitant wave, his gaze darting between each of them, and lingering on the two security mountains.
“Uhm, sorry.” His voice trembled. He swallowed, then turned and pointed down at the window. “Could I get a closer look?”
Hopper raised an eyebrow.
“We rescued him from another ship,” Marc explained. “He was the only one who made it.”
“I wouldn’t mind a closer look, too,” Soo-jin
said, tilting her head. “Never did get to see one myself.”
Hopper’s jaw tensed, as did Netahl’s. The two security grunts, too, seemed to stand a bit stiffer.
“Yes,” Hopper said finally. “I think I can arrange that.”
*
He took them to a sub-corridor, dropping down a flight of stairs into a narrower hallway lined with doors. The walls changed from the rough, matte-gray plastic of the rest of the station to a brushed metal that gleamed with a dull sheen under the overhead lights. As they walked between the doors, Karin’s unease grew when she realized they were cabins, not cells.
“What happens when one of them touches you?” Marc asked.
Hopper shrugged. “Not a whole lot. You get touched. They linger. It gets weird.”
His words might have been a joke, but they fell flat on his dismal tone. Though he tried to hide it, he was tense—not scared, she thought, but emotional.
He stopped at a door and pressed his thumb against the sensor. After a second, the red flashed to green.
The door hissed open.
The woman stood alone in the room, illuminated on all sides by the baseboard lighting. She was tall, thickset, with long tawny hair that fell over her shoulders. It looked like it had been brushed recently.
When she looked up, her black eyes glistened in the light like oil.
“Sharon. My wife.” Hopper shifted. “At least, I hope she still is.”
His jaw worked again, muscles rippling beneath the skin of his cheeks, and Karin was close enough to hear his teeth crack. She thought she saw his lips tremble a little.
But he took a breath, squared his shoulders, and stepped forward. “She won’t hurt you. She doesn’t move around as much as some of them. More like a doll, really.”
Ethan took a tentative step, arms curled into his chest, and Karin stepped right along with him, ready to haul him back out of the room.
But the woman only watched, her black eyes blinking once.
Soo-jin pushed right past them, stepping into the room with a business-like manner. “How long ago was she taken?”
Sharon’s head turned to follow her as she made a small circuit around. When Soo-jin wiggled a hand around in front of her face, Sharon reached out to grab it.
