Black Dawn

by Gorman, K.

  It didn’t, though. She’d made sure of that, at least.

  “Looks like our window of opportunity just got a bit more… complex,” Soo-jin said quietly.

  “Yes. Guessing our absence was noticed.” She nodded toward the sanctuary. “I can see lights out the back, too. You think they’re checking the dorms for us?”

  “I imagine they’ll check the forest, first. And, unfortunately, we’re sitting in the most logical hiding place we’d go. I mean, it’s not like we backtracked or anything. And I wouldn’t try doing anything like that now.” Soo-jin narrowed her eyes, her gaze on the path to their ship. “Your abilities don’t extend to bending light, do they? You know, like with the stealth camo some ships have?”

  Karin paused. “Actually, I haven’t tried that.”

  “I suppose now’s probably not the best time to experiment with that, hey?”

  “No. I’d probably make us glow first.”

  “Well, what can you do? Other than heal people and kill Shadows?”

  “I can make shapes?” she said. “Light places up? Used to do that with my sister…”

  “Yeah, I bet you make a mean flashlight. What’s your range?” Soo-jin sat up straighter, viewing the downslope of the sanctuary’s lot. “You think you could reach the road?”

  She craned her neck. “Probably.”

  “Can you make it look like a flashlight beam? Move it so it gets their attention? Nothing too obviously ‘come follow me’ but—shit!” Soo-jin’s voice suddenly quieted, and she pulled Karin down with her. “He got close.”

  Cold flushed across the front of her chest when the soldier stepped into their frame of sight. Heart hammering, they sank down behind the branches. Not that they hadn’t been aware of his approach—they had, and, as far as Karin could tell, they were appropriately far back enough as to be hidden—but he’d moved much faster, and much more quietly, than either of them had anticipated.

  And now that he was here, the reality of their situation struck fast.

  Suddenly, every sound became amplified. She strained to observe everything she could—then, remembering something Nomiki had said about people being able to feel other’s attention, she jerked her wide-eyed stare down to his feet.

  Pretend to be a rock. Or a tree. A leaf. Some piece of dead, over-wintered wild growth left over from fall. Faint traces of the ship’s lighting shone on some of the stick-thin branches. The soldier’s own light flashed over their heads. Soo-jin had gone absolutely still, a solid, unmoving, silent presence pressing into her elbow.

  The soldier’s light flashed over their heads again. Gravel crunched under his boot, sounding like it was right beside them.

  Then, after a few seconds, he passed, inspecting the next segment of forest.

  Karin let out a slow breath, then brought her head up to watch his slowly-retreating back.

  Soo-jin grabbed her shoulder. “Now,” she hissed into her ear. “Do it now.”

  Karin swallowed hard. Then, as the soldier moved farther and farther away, she rose up on her knees. Light flared across her hands, but she hid them inside her shirt, palms smooth and tingling against her abdomen.

  Like a flashlight, she thought. Don’t bother with anything fancy, just a simple flash.

  She shifted her right hand, then swiveled it across her stomach, the same way she might a computer mouse.

  An answering flare of light snapped up from the end of the driveway, some fifty meters down the slope. She quickly tamped it down, spreading its light like a cone. The top of its beam darted across the bases of a few trees that lined the road, and then she made it jump and skitter to the side, as if they were running.

  The soldiers in the lot didn’t say anything—no shouts of discovery or alarm—but they had all stopped to watch.

  A second later, with a few hand signals that Karin couldn’t comprehend, they had all started a kind of stealthy half-jog down the drive. One crossed from the opposite side to join their guy on the treeline.

  Soo-jin let out a breath. “I can’t believe that worked.”

  “I can do their ship, too.” She squinted. “Not sure if I could find all the cameras, though.”

  “Yeah, and I bet they’ll be looking in our direction,” Soo-jin said, considering the angles. “You think you could grope yourself some more and cover their entire ship, just to be safe?”

  “Give me a sec.” She squinted at the military vessel. “I did a couple electives in ship design.”

  But, before she’d done more than spy out the obvious cameras—above and below where the ship’s aft guns were mounted—movement caught her eye back to the sanctuary. Marc stepped down from the entrance door, squinting against the light of the ship.

  “Shit.” Soo-jin sat up. “Can you—hell, I dunno. What should we do? Stop him?”

  “He could open the door for us,” she said. “That way, we can just run in.”

  “Yeah, yeah—well, he had his netlink on him, but I think if they see him talking to someone on it...” Soo-jin nodded toward the bigger ship. “Well, they’ll be a lot more suspicious of him.”

  Karin cocked an eyebrow. “And they’re not suspicious of him now?”

  “Good point.” Soo-jin raised a finger. “But they can look at messages on a netlink.” She glanced at her sideways. “Can you do something with the light?”

  Just then, the door to the sanctuary burst open again. Two more soldiers came out, guns lifted.

  Marc, then roughly ten feet from the front step of the entranceway, about half-way between there and the closest ship, whirled around.

  The soldiers descended, guns leveled on Marc.

  Karin’s heart went cold as the soldiers barked an order, its exact command lost between the distance and the diction.

  Marc’s hands rose from his side, palms splayed forward. His whole body had tensed.

  “Uhh…” Soo-jin said. “What’s going on?”

  “Maybe they found out he wasn’t Alliance,” Karin said softly.

  Whatever it was, the lead soldier appeared to be angry. He stepped forward, face twisted into a snarl that even she could see, then made an exaggerated motion as he spat on the concrete in Marc’s direction.

  When he spoke again, it was in a low, angry tone.

  His gun lifted.

  “Shit!” Soo-jin sucked in a breath. “Shit shit shit they’re going to shoot him!” She smacked her. “Do something!”

  Beside her, Karin was having a hard time breathing. “Working on it.”

  Her light flared under her palms—both of them. One of the soldiers’ heads turned her way, but she didn’t care, too focused on the bead of light that she collected on the roof of the sanctuary’s extended walkway.

  Marc saw it, too. His head shifted.

  The light dropped onto the lead soldier’s head and fastened into place like a full-head mask.

  The blaster cracked. Light streaked.

  But Marc was already diving. He hit the ground and rolled, dust rising as he scrabbled back to his feet.

  He sprinted for the ship.

  Frantic, Karin pulled on more light to cover the other two soldiers—one was definitely looking her way—and then rose. “Come on, this is our chance.”

  Soo-jin took one look at her glowing hands, then grabbed her elbow and pulled her through the undergrowth. A blaster bolt hit a tree twenty feet to their left—a wayward shot, but close enough for sparks to crackle into their sight. They jumped ahead, branches cracking and snapping as they pushed through. Sharp pain spiked up from her bad knee again, and she sucked in a gasp as her ankle twisted on the uneven ground.

  When they hit gravel, Soo-jin half-hauled, half-dragged a limping Karin to the ship.

  Marc skidded in ahead of them. A hydraulic hiss sounded as the bottom hatch opened. He didn’t even bother to wait for the stairs—he made the jump, caught the lip, and pulled himself inside.

  His wide-eyed gaze saw them coming, and he twisted around, ready to help. His hand caught Karin’
s wrist as Soo-jin pushed her up. Then she wriggled in beside her. Their palms smacked the metal floor as they pulled themselves in.

  He lunged for the door panel. As the hydraulics hissed again, several more blaster strikes flew through the air, going wide.

  He gave a half-second’s glance at Karin’s glowing hands, then jumped to run down the hall. “Whatever you’re doing, keep doing it. I’ll see about engines.”

  She didn’t have time to give him a nod. He wouldn’t have seen it. Instead, she curled her legs up to keep them inside the closing outer ramp. Soo-jin, Marc’s blaster in her hand, crept to the other side, then peeked around the side.

  A blaster strike hit the top edge of the door. A spark of pain burned her skin as one of the offshoots landed on her arm.

  Soo-jin ducked her head back in with a yelp. “Those three guys are coming back. Think you could light them up?”

  “Not without seeing them.” She went to pull herself toward the door, but another blast struck its frame.

  Soo-jin kicked the wall. “This stupid thing needs to close faster.”

  It was half-up now, having had to reverse the partial-lowering of the stairs after Marc had initially opened it.

  “Shit, shit, shit, shit,” Karin said. Movement caught her eye, though the soldier that appeared quickly hid behind the frame. Light fluctuated from her hands, some of it rising like little wisps that rippled into the air. Cool air pricked her skin from the half-closed doorway, reminding her of just how open it was. Outside, voices shouted. The faint glimmer of stars pricked the sky. “Hang on.”

  She curled herself together, then pulled hard on her power.

  The response was immediate.

  Light flooded the scene, unfolding across the lot like a wave of plasma. It felt like a whumph of air hit her as it crashed in on her and the Nemina as its epicenter. Marc gave an alarmed shout in the bridge. Soldiers also shouted outside. More blasts struck the door, one hitting the ceiling. Sparks offshot from it, flaring heat as they fell in front of her face. Light warped around her in waves, undulating, recessing, coiling. Energy tingled through her body.

  The door clicked shut.

  Soo-jin’s hand found her wrist. “You okay?”

  Karin couldn’t respond. All she could do was focus on her power, focus on keeping it pouring through her. It felt like she was holding her breath. If she let her focus go, the whole thing would collapse. She had to keep it lit.

  The engines thrummed to life.

  Soo-jin hesitated. Then her hand left Karin’s wrist. “I’ll be right back.”

  Boots thumped heavily on the walkway as Soo-jin ran to the bridge.

  Karin was alone.

  Or, well, almost alone.

  Even before he spoke, she felt his presence. He stood in her light as if it were the most normal thing in the world. The entire corridor was white, the brightness of it reflecting off the metal and fixtures like bare definitions in a camera whose light meter had malfunctioned. The light wasn’t colored—it was pure, white, all colors. As such, all colors became a muted, warm presence within it.

  She found she could see him. Soft green eyes stared from above her, appearing upside down like the rest of the hallway from her vantage point. Cool metal pressed to her cheek. She realized she was lying on the floor.

  “Ethan?” she asked. “How—what?”

  He shook his head. Then he moved his attention from her to the light around them, considering it. “That’s outside, too, isn’t it?”

  She nodded. She could still feel it.

  He glanced back up the other hallway, his eyes assessing. “You won’t need it much longer. They’re almost up, I think. I—”

  The ship jerked. Without the vacuum of space to muffle them, the engines gave a hard whine, roaring into action with a ship-shuddering clunk like a motor suddenly propelled into high gear.

  The next jolt slid her across the floor. She slammed hands-first into the opposite wall.

  Her light blinked out in a flash.

  When she looked back up, Ethan had vanished. He reappeared a few seconds later, fingers clutching the corner like a rock climber on a mountain’s edge. A thick frown cleaved his face. The look in his eyes had turned from awe-struck wondering to deep alarm.

  The ship careened drunkenly to the side. Something—were those trees?—smacked and scraped hard into the hull beneath her. She clung to the floor as it evened out, eyes widening. Another series of thwacks and cracks reverberated through the floor, this time accompanied by the sound of whining machinery.

  Sol. They’re going to catch the landing gear in something.

  Her brief flash of panic settled into a slow, resigned anger. Her muscles quivered. With a tentative wobble and a heavy hand on the now-sealed door, she pushed herself to her feet and staggered up the tilting hallway.

  “Go find a place with a seatbelt,” she said, then thumped hard against the wall as the ship rocked. “I’m going to teach these people how to fly.”

  Chapter 31

  Karin staggered to the bridge, clutching hard against the walls. Then, as the ship steadied out, she lunged for the closest fixed chair.

  “I thought you people knew how to fly,” she grumbled, buckling herself in and snapping up a flight display onto the screen in front of her.

  “Never said I flew well.” Marc, hands gripping the manual sticks like pipe wrenches, risked a glance her way as she pulled the co-pilot’s manual drive out from the dashboard. “On three?”

  “Yeah. Three,” she said, then kicked the emergency switch at her feet.

  An alarm sounded, and he gave a yelp as the ship dipped, the controls going limp in his hands. But Karin steadied it out a second later, easing them into a less-hectic path. Trees flew fast beneath them, giving her a dizzying sense of speed when she glanced through the viewscreen. She took a moment to study their course history.

  “Any reason we’re going around the mountain?” she asked.

  “I preferred not to go through it,” he said.

  He looked a lot more relaxed now, watching their course on the monitor. Soo-jin, too, seemed a little less worried.

  “You guys seriously can’t fly?” she asked. “What the hell did you do before I came along?”

  “We can fly in straight lines. Docking, take-offs, with the help of the computer. We know how to get her up in the air and fly it around. The computer usually takes care of most of it.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Guessing there’s no computer model for ‘get us the fuck out of here’?”

  “Alas, no.”

  She shook her head, then returned her gaze to the screens. They were approaching a lake. The trees had dropped away from them now. With the darkening sky casting the area in a deep, dark blue, the scene put an almost-immediate sense of peace over her. She sat back in the chair and adjusted her grip.

  For a moment, the cabin was quiet.

  Movement caught the corner of her eye. Ethan, eyes wide and his face awash in the colors of the bridge’s screens, crept inside.

  “I thought I told you to find a crash seat,” she said.

  “This was the closest one,” he said, slinking carefully to where one folded out of the wall.

  Right. She gave her head a shake and refocused on their course. “So, where are we going? Orbit? Back to Bau?”

  “Ideally, somewhere we can set her down and hide out for a bit.” Marc turned. “Soo-jin, anyone on our tail?”

  “Not as far as I can tell. We ran pretty quick.”

  “Let’s hope any planet tracking systems are down.” She swung to the far side of the lake. They were still too close to the sanctuary to land—their heat signature alone would make them easily visible through the trees. “Soo-jin, can you find me a place? This planet got any big, deep, uninhabited caves?”

  In the end, they settled on the rocky instep of a cliff about five hundred miles up the coast. After piloting them down into the sand, Karin flung herself back into the seat, massaged her wrists, and let
herself relax.

  Around her, the bridge fell quiet. Neither Marc nor Soo-jin, nor Ethan by the wall, rose from their seats.

  But she could feel their attention on her.

  “Guess my secret’s out now, huh?” she said.

  “Girl, you lit that whole place up,” Soo-jin said. “I give them maybe three hours before they have your picture plastered on every planetary and satellite feed.”

  “Not to mention ours, plus the Nemina’s ID tags.” Marc leaned his head back, then glanced her way. “I disabled our broadcast, in case you were wondering.”

  Soo-jin poked at her controls. “We’re gonna have to install an anonymizer on this thing.”

  “She used to have one,” Marc commented. “It was stripped with the rest of the stuff.”

  “Cookie could put one back on,” Soo-jin said. “I could too, probably. There’s some good guides around.”

  “Could you fudge the ident tags, too?” he asked.

  “No.”

  He leaned back with a resigned sigh. “Then we have a problem.”

  A small silence settled in the cabin while the three of them thought on that. Karin, who’d been mentally tallying her current injuries, opened her eyes as she realized they were both looking at her.

  Fear struck her heart, instinctive. She immediately stiffened.

  Oh, Gods, thought a small part of her brain. They’re going to turn me in.

  But then, the rest of her brain caught up with the conversation.

  “You’re still thinking of jail-breaking him?” she asked. “Even with the military on us?”

  “By my estimate, if we go quick enough, loop back around—they might not expect that. Might take them time to get the alerts up. One hand talking to the other, you know? And maybe they’ll be too busy trying to figure out what you did back there. Some might explain it away as a weird flash bomb,” Marc mused aloud.

  “Except for the part where I healed people.”

  “Except for that.”

  “Technically, they didn’t see that part. Dude walked in on us after you’d done your thing.”

  She arched a brow. “So they’ll be looking for the both of us?”

  “To cover their bases? Yeah, probably.” Soo-jin sighed. Leaning forward in a hunch, she narrowed her eyes at the screen, though Karin didn’t think she was really looking at it.