Shadow Run

by Michael Miller

  My eyes probably looked pitch black to her, since I was still viewing the world through the dark pane of glass. Except now there were bright sparks in the corners, almost the reverse of what usually happened. But these sparks were brighter than the light of the normal world—something else. Something new. Something greater.

  Or something worse.

  As the sparks grew, shapes began to skitter around me, cracking across my hands, across the woman’s face. For a moment, we both seemed to shatter…but then we snapped back together again.

  I was starting to hallucinate. This was the beginning of the end. It didn’t matter that I’d just developed some Shadow-related power that no one, to my knowledge, ever had before. Because I was also going crazy…which happened to everyone like me. This was the dark path that Onai, that my parents, had walked. A pulse of terror ripped through my fury, almost like a scream from inside me.

  “Nev?” I said, my voice afraid, pleading, and it surprised me. I wasn’t even sure what I was asking him. To make it stop? To help me?

  Why would I turn to him for help? He was the one who had gotten me into this. Then again, he’d tried to get me back out of it, and he was the only one helping me right now.

  Maybe he thought I was only asking for tips on how to get answers from the woman, because he burbled, “Squeezing her neck too hard.”

  I relaxed my grip on the woman’s throat long enough to let her suck in a wheezing breath.

  “You have abilities we’ve never seen,” she rasped. “We want to understand your Shadow affinity. We need it—”

  I choked her off again as I shook my head. “You…you want this? This…affinity…drove my parents mad. Killed them. Killed my grandparents. Killed almost my entire family.”

  There was something else there, something I couldn’t quite place that was stoking my anger like a plasma furnace—no, like burning Shadow. The sparks crackled in my vision.

  The woman shied away, but she was still stupid enough to open her mouth and gasp, “But…you must understand. Before now, we’ve only heard rumors of the heightened senses of those with Shadow affinity, but this strength is something else entirely. Your people, and others like you, have evolved an ability to use Shadow we don’t yet comprehend. You are evolved, like super-beings. If only you knew how to use it, we—”

  “If only it didn’t kill us, you mean,” I spat, interrupting. And then I understood what was making me so angry. “This is my life. My death. My family’s tragedy. We’ve suffered for this for so long, and gained so little. How dare you try to just come in and take it?”

  “Qole,” Nev grunted from the floor. “Don’t—”

  “Well,” I laughed, and the sound was as black as my vision. As cracked and as crazy. “Over my dead body, you will.”

  I’d always kept my distance, tried not to touch Shadow outside of what was already in my body. Tried to restrain myself, for my own sake, and only sense what was out there. This time, I lifted my hand—literally, there in the lab—and I reached for it like never before.

  I sensed a greater pool of darkness, the way I often could when fishing: Shadow, a ways from me. It was the huge cache we had aboard the Kaitan. I wasn’t sure how I did it, but this time, for the first time across so great a distance, I seized onto it directly. I didn’t draw it toward myself, or into my body, but somehow I pulled my consciousness to it.

  My vision exploded, fragmenting. In all of the fracturing swirls, I fell apart. I was truly outside myself, and I could hear Nev shouting at me from somewhere far away. But I was elsewhere…in the hold of my ship.

  I was with the Shadow. I was a part of the Shadow.

  I didn’t take all of it, but I took a lot of it. And then I was racing along the vents and plumbing of this ship, working my way into its cracks. The ship was so smooth, but the cracks were there. I was in its veins, its blood, infecting as I went.

  And then I found the ship’s heart.

  The massive explosion threw us all sideways. That snapped me back to my body, in the lab. That, and the alarm that went off, blaring in my ears. Red warning lights flared around the room.

  I managed to stay upright and kept the woman standing with me by my grip on her neck.

  “No need to go for the alarm, now,” I told her.

  “What happened?” Nev slurred from the floor.

  “I think I blew up the ship’s engine.” I didn’t like how far away my voice still sounded, as if I’d left it behind wherever I had gone. My words sounded insane, too. Manipulating Shadow from so far away should have been impossible, and yet I had somehow done it. But at what cost to myself ?

  He barked a laugh of disbelief. “This destroyer has three primary engines.”

  “I think I blew them all up, then.”

  He stared at me, realizing I was telling the truth. “Oh. Well, in that case, no need to worry about cams or anyone storming the lab. They’ll be too occupied to bother with us for a while.” He winced, maybe at the pain, or maybe at how muddled he sounded, and muttered, “One second.”

  All in all, he was taking the situation pretty calmly. Maybe he was trying to keep me calm. If I could do something like this…what else could I do with this power? Especially if I lost my mind?

  He dragged himself to his knees and crawled over to the cabinets, holding his bleeding jaw as if it might fall off. He wrenched open a cupboard door with his other hand, then another door and another, until he pulled out a large, white box with a shiny red cross on it—a medi-kit.

  The sparks were still threatening the corners of my vision, seemingly unraveling it at the edges, and maybe unraveling me. So I waited for Nev while he fumbled open the case, pulled out an injector tube, and jammed it into the side of his neck. He followed that with a tube of a different size and shape. The effects were immediate, like when he’d removed his disguise. The erupting bruises began to fade, the swelling went down, and the bleeding stopped. He gave his jaw an experimental wiggle and spat a mouthful of blood onto the floor.

  “At least now I can talk,” he said, wincing as he hauled himself upright. “And hopefully move. Qole, we need to go, now.”

  “No,” I said. I didn’t quite know why, but I couldn’t. I stared at the scientist, my hand still around her throat.

  He scooped his blade up from the floor when he rose and kicked the still-unconscious Bladeguard’s farther away from him. He might have leaned on the counter as he made his way over to me, but the tip of his sword was steady as he held it up to the woman’s cheek. I stared at it. The red warning light flashed on the gleaming metal, and cracks that weren’t actually there moved up the blade and into his arm—more hallucinations. At least, I assumed Nev’s arm wasn’t really cracking apart.

  I shuddered, another scream of fear spiking from deep inside. I hoped I wasn’t actually screaming. I couldn’t tell what was real anymore. Maybe if insane things hadn’t truly been happening around me, I could have simply assumed I’d lost my mind entirely. But no…I’d used my body like a weapon, seized control of a huge amount of Shadow, and directed it to do what several plasma missiles probably couldn’t.

  Nev glanced at me, but not for long. I distantly wondered if it was because he wanted to keep his gaze on the woman or if he couldn’t meet the blackness of my eyes. A pang shot through me at the latter thought. Were they only startling, or disturbing?

  What did he see when he looked at me? A scientific curiosity, like the woman saw? A monster? And why did I care?

  “Qole, you can let go of her now,” he said, his voice uncharacteristically soft, like when he’d been trying to stop me from sending him out the airlock. It was in stark contrast to the ear-piercing whoops of the alarm system.

  “But I need to know why.” My words sounded desperate, clinging to that hypothetical answer like I was trying to cling to myself. Both the answer and myself seemed to be slipping out of my grasp. “Why is she doing this to me? What does everyone want from me?”

  Still, my hand fell away from her n
eck, and the woman gulped and gasped like I’d actually been drowning her in my rage.

  Nev answered in the same soothing tone. “I’ll tell you soon, I promise. But first we need to—”

  “No!” I shouted, and the volume was louder than the alarms. “We’re not going until I know!”

  “Okay, okay,” Nev said. “I’ll interrogate her, but you need to focus on calming down. Here, sit on the counter.”

  Something brushed the skin of my arm and I jumped, the sparks leaping in my shadowy vision—but it was only Nev’s free hand, scooting me behind him. My senses were so heightened that his touch drove through me like a knife, like pure terror…except it wasn’t painful or frightening. It was electric. I fell back more than sat against the edge of the counter.

  Nev didn’t seem to notice as he refocused on the woman. “You’re working with the Treznor-Nirmana family, aren’t you?” There was no trace of anything soothing left in his voice. It was as sharp and cold as the blade he held against her throat. “Answer quickly.”

  She jerked a nod and coughed. The movement made her graze the edge of the sword, and even that was enough to open a superficial slice in her skin. She gasped, but Nev didn’t pull back. “Yes!”

  “How long have you been following my family’s research into Shadow? And how closely?”

  She didn’t hesitate for a moment, the answer spilling out of her. “Two years and extremely closely thanks to several informants. We know of your work to bind Shadow with organic matter to make it a more stable and widely applicable fuel source. But we only recently realized why you wanted to study humans who have an affinity for it.”

  My fingers tightened so hard on the edge of the counter that the synthetic material creaked. Would Nev, or the Dracortes, have tried to do the same thing to me as the Treznors? A pit of darkness opened up inside me at the thought, and my vision blackened further.

  Nev blinked. “It’s a part of the same research, toward that one end, nothing more. If you think that cutting into Qole would give you the answers we’re seeking, you’re wrong. We would never hurt her,” he said with extra vehemence, as if he weren’t just telling the woman; he was telling me, too.

  My hands relaxed their grip slightly. Nev hadn’t wanted to hurt me. Ever. Somehow I’d already sensed that, but now I knew. The relief, like the touch of his hand, nearly flattened me.

  “How else could we get the results we need in so little time, before you get them yourself ?” the woman insisted. “It was your research into Shadow’s affinity with living tissue that led the Treznors to realize the potential in them.” She glanced at me. “There were rumors, but no one believed them to be true until you went yourself, my lord—”

  “Please don’t waste my time with formalities after one of your underlings nearly broke my jaw,” he interrupted, a sardonic note back in his tone.

  “As you like, my—sir. We knew how important your mission was. The Treznors wished to make the breakthrough first.”

  “What precisely is it you want to achieve? Because I’m sure our goals aren’t the same.”

  She swallowed, glancing at me again in fear, the red-alert lights glowing in her eyes. Whether the rest of the ship was occupied or not, Nev was probably right—we needed to be moving now. But I couldn’t turn away. “Precision would take hours to explain. But, put quite simply, we want to discover what makes her work, how human beings can use Shadow, and then we want to modify it for the Treznor-Nirmanas’ own use.”

  “You want widespread human application. You want super-soldiers.” Nev swore. “Qole, deep breaths,” he added over his shoulder, and I realized I was nearly hyperventilating.

  I was also on my feet before I realized I’d moved. A massive surge of fury-driven hate had lifted me like a monstrous ocean breaker. People like the Treznors would take my twisted family inheritance and use it to kill more people? How could they?

  Nev was trying to hold me back with his free arm, but he might as well have been shoving against the wall with all this darkness and new light swirling in my vision to lend me strength.

  She wanted to see what I could do? I would happily demonstrate. On her.

  I reached for the Shadow again…and everything went completely, bottomlessly black. No tinted windowpane. Just total darkness.

  I heard my name from far away. Heard it again.

  “Qole!”

  Nev was shouting my name.

  “I’m here.” My voice was so faint, it was a wonder he could hear me over the wailing alarms.

  I opened my eyes. Nev’s arms were around me to keep me from falling. The blunt back edge of the sword pressed a cold line into my shoulder where he still gripped it in his hand, but his arms were incredibly warm. They also felt strong and stable and…nice.

  Suddenly embarrassed, I tried to shove away from him. I blinked when I realized I was too weak. The darkness had lifted from my vision. The overhead lights had dimmed when the emergency power generators kicked on, but everything was still brighter than it had been.

  The red-alert lights continued to flash, but the sparks no longer danced in my eyes and nothing was cracking apart anymore. I wasn’t sure what that meant, but I didn’t have time to think about it. I hadn’t yet lost myself, though who knew for how long. I shoved at Nev a second time, glaring so he would get the message.

  “Apologies,” he said, letting go of me. “You would have—”

  His arms caught me again as I almost did what I would have done before: fallen flat on my face. My legs were shaking, knees buckling, and it wasn’t because of the shudders vibrating through the ship that I hadn’t noticed moments earlier. I was completely exhausted. I couldn’t remember a time I’d ever felt so depleted, not even after fishing for days, or even weeks straight.

  Either I’d simply touched too much Shadow and tired myself out, or…

  “Qole, are you all right?” Nev asked, a sharp tone of worry cutting into his voice. “Your eyes are better, so I thought…”

  My eyes. Better. The blackness definitely disturbed him, but I couldn’t really blame him, not after what I’d done.

  “I…I can’t do anything else. I’m tired. We need to go.” I didn’t like how frail my voice was, but, as with my legs, I couldn’t force any strength into it. I was on empty.

  He seemed to adjust to the news quickly. His bright silvery gaze swept the dim, red-flashing room. The woman was down on the ground and as unmoving as everyone else. Nev must have knocked her out. I didn’t know how, and I didn’t have the energy to care.

  “I don’t think you ruptured the hull with the explosion, so life support will sustain everyone on board—including those who might want to keep us on board. Let’s take advantage of the chaos, gather what we need, and get out of here.” He hesitated then. “Do you…um…want some better covering?”

  He tried to avert his eyes, even as he held me upright against him.

  I glanced down. I was barefoot, in my softest, thinnest pair of leather leggings that I usually wore under a pair of fur-lined pants, and my tank top was slit nearly up to my chest, exposing my stomach. I tried to pinch the gap closed with one hand, and brushed my embarrassment aside for practicality’s sake. I wished my blush could have gone with it, but my cheeks were still hot as I answered, “I’m fine. Let’s just go.”

  “We should get to a starfighter. Think you can pilot it?” He grimaced. “You look like you can barely walk, but we don’t have many other options. I’ve trained, but my skills aren’t anything like—”

  “It’s okay,” I said. “Even if I couldn’t walk, I could still fly.” I took a hesitant step away from him. “And I think I can walk, too.”

  His hands lingered for a moment to make sure I could stand without help, then fell away from me. My skin suddenly missed their warmth. I was just cold, that was all. And tired, so tired.

  Nev dove to gather his bag, sliding my fur slippers toward me. At least I had those to keep my bare feet from the chilly floor. My robe was in tatters, and I cou
ldn’t help shivering as I looked at it in its ragged pile. This ship’s ambient temperature was way warmer than the Kaitan’s, but my body didn’t even have the energy to heat itself. It was like I was sick.

  And dying, maybe.

  “Here,” Nev said. Before I could grab a scrap of my robe to use as a shawl, he shrugged off his jacket—a deep charcoal gray that looked nice with his eyes, I realized—and wrapped it around my shoulders.

  I didn’t even have the energy to protest as he zipped it up for me. And by then I didn’t want to. The jacket was so charged with his body heat I practically melted into it. It also smelled good. Maybe I should look into synthetic gear for the crew, I thought sleepily, cost be damned.

  Nev slung his bag over one shoulder, muscles cording in his bare arms, and gripped his blade in one hand and the plasma pistol in the other. The pale skin of his biceps was splotched with the remnants of bruises that the medi-kit hadn’t quite healed—gifts from Eton. If I hadn’t felt equally bruised inside and out, I would have felt sorrier for him.

  Never mind that he’d been trying to hijack my ship when Eton had beaten him up. And here I was, trusting him to help me out of here?

  Again, it wasn’t like I had any other options, especially now that I’d run myself dry. Besides, he’d fought for me. He was trying to keep me alive. He didn’t want to hurt me. He wanted to use me, somehow, but maybe I could use him in return. Or, if I wanted to be less utilitarian about it: he needed me, and right now I needed him.

  And his jacket was so warm.

  He cleared his throat. “I can’t keep ahold of you, because I need my attention forward. But hang on to my shirt so I know you’re keeping up, or if you fall.”

  He turned and gestured at his lower back, where his black undershirt fell to the top of his pants.

  My blush threatened to flare up again. “I don’t need—”

  “Just humor me,” he said with a touch of impatience. “Besides, you can keep an eye out behind me. In fact, take this.” He forced the pistol into my half-willing hand and pulled another—yes, another plasma XR-Whatever-Force—from the front of his pants. Which meant, between us, we were now holding the worth of my ship in guns, never mind what his blade cost. Those blades were rarer than any gun, so we probably held twice the worth of my ship.