I FROZE, CLUTCHING THE FLASHLIGHT, my heart seeming to stop altogether. Maybe the sound wouldn’t come again. But it did: the unmistakable drag of a tail over the floor.
My fingers fumbled on the flashlight. I pressed the button and light flooded the cupboard in front of me, so bright it stung my eyes and set my teeth on edge. Slowly, I released the button, not allowing it to make even the hint of a click. Just as slowly, I maneuvered into a kneeling position and turned around.
The creature stood on the other side of the med facility. It resembled the ones I’d seen on Obsidian, bigger and more menacing than the aliens we’d encountered on Sanctuary. Had they sent something stronger, darker, to hunt the monsters who stole their ship and killed the harvesters? The possibility sent chills down my spine.
Fortunately, it seemed as blind as the monsters on Sanctuary, shifting from side to side. Did it hear me? Just in case, I slid farther along the wall, away from the cupboard I’d pulled open in the dark.
As I moved, something caught my peripheral vision. I angled the flashlight to my right in time to see another of the creatures stalk past the alternate exit. My blood ran cold. Mere minutes ago, I’d crept along that wall, using it as guidance in my progress around the room. How close had I come to touching one of those things? I hadn’t heard a sound from them, not a click of claws, nothing. Had they only recently arrived? How? From where? Did they open portals like me? Or were they hunting me, waiting, tracking my movements in complete and utter silence?
I cast the light the way I’d come. I’d planned to leave through the far door, but that escape route was no longer an option. My only hope was to retreat and make my way to the holding cells in the corridor outside. I stayed low, crawling at a snail’s pace. The creatures didn’t do anything, simply hovering in what almost looked like suspended animation except for the occasional quirk of their heads. I was afraid to even breathe too deeply. Aside from the occasional flicker of my flashlight over my left shoulder to make sure there weren’t more of the things, I kept them in my spotlight.
It was the closest I’d seen them. The bright light did nothing to make them less horrifying, bringing them into sharp relief: glistening skin, curved fangs, sinewed limbs. Every instinct screamed at me to run, but I didn’t dare. I moved as slowly as my racing heart allowed, my soft-soled shoes nearly noiseless against the floor. After every halting step, I paused, waiting to see if they’d noticed.
I’d made it about halfway across the room when something changed. My heart stuttered as the alien by the far door jerked its chin up, sniffing the air. It tilted its head and screeched to its partner. The other creature slapped its tail against the wall and howled in response. I froze in utter terror. I’d understood just enough of those cries to catch the sense of prey, a call to hunt.
A surge of adrenaline burned through my caution, and I bolted for the exit. The monster behind me screamed, and I barely had time to register surprise in its tone. They hadn’t been reacting to me after all.
They were now, though.
I was still ten feet from the door when one of the aliens vaulted into the air. Its mottled head grazed the ceiling panel, but it must have somehow sensed the proximity, controlling its height to land directly in front of me. It hunched on its hind legs, a long, pointed black tongue protruding from its mouth, tasting the air like a snake. I skidded to a halt. A clatter from behind warned me just in time, and I threw myself to the side as the other creature landed directly where I’d been standing.
Forcing my heart to beat through my panic, I belly-crawled along the floor, the flashlight clutched in one hand. I dragged myself toward a nearby bed and wiggled into the space beneath it. The aliens screamed their horrible shrill cry. Hunt it. Contain it. Kill it.
I was pretty sure I’d liked it better when I didn’t understand them at all.
I sank my teeth into my lip and drew myself into a tight ball, folding my limbs in on each other, clutching the flashlight to my chest with trembling hands. I shook so hard the light cast the recesses of my hasty hiding place into sickly shadows, but I stayed completely still otherwise, even holding my breath as long as possible before drawing slow, silent gasps.
A tail swished past me. Then one on the other side. Their cries grew more agitated. They knew where I’d been, where I’d vanished, but they couldn’t find me. Not yet.
But they would. Sooner or later, I’d have to move, and these things were relentless. . . .
There was a soft swish. It took me a moment to register it as the sound of the door sliding open. Both creatures froze, their muscles tensing in anticipation, and an even brighter light than my own cut through the darkness. “Hey!” a man called. “Over here!”
The creatures screamed and leaped into the light. Gunfire ricocheted, so loud I dropped the flashlight and clamped my hands over my ears. That wasn’t a single gunshot. It was the sound of automatic fire, and maybe a laser blast mixed in for good measure.
It lasted less than a minute. Everything went quiet, and the light flickered around the room. “Come on out,” he called. “They’re dead.”
I closed my eyes. I recognized the voice now. My mind raced, searching for an alternative method of escape. I almost preferred the aliens.
“Keeeenzieeeeee,” Hallam sang, his voice teasing. “I know it’s you. Come on, girl. You really want to face more of those things on your own?”
“Don’t make us come after you.” That was Priya, clipped and tense.
I hesitated another moment, then shrugged. I didn’t really have another exit. If they came in here, they’d find me and arrest me. “Okay,” I said, surprising myself with a reasonably solid voice. “I’m coming. Just don’t shoot me.”
Hallam chortled. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”
I didn’t take a lot of reassurance from that, but nonetheless, I rolled the flashlight onto the floor so I could keep my hands visible and crawled out after it. Arms spread, I picked up the flashlight and got to unsteady feet.
Hallam and Priya stood shadowed in the doorway, both wearing bright lights clipped to their shoulders, almost blinding me until they angled them away. Hallam held the biggest gun I’d ever seen. It looked like a rocket launcher, but something resembling ammunition dangled below it. Priya held a laser rifle. That I did recognize. It was one of the newer and deadlier models. Two other people hovered behind them in the hall. Finn and Matt, I guessed.
On the floor between us lay the smoking pile of fleshy chunks that used to be the aliens. There was no blood, only the strange fluid we’d seen them use on their own ship, but my stomach still lurched at the sight. I forced myself to look at the hunters instead. “What’s going on?” I managed.
“We hoped you’d tell us,” Hallam drawled.
I risked a few steps toward them. “Omnistellar lured those monsters here to steal their tech, as you probably know by now. They thought they’d reinforced this ship enough to keep the creatures out, but they were wrong. Maybe they made a mistake, or maybe these aliens are stronger than the ones on Sanctuary. Either way, they’re here.” I swallowed hard. “Have you seen the command center?”
“Yeah,” said Priya softly. The muscles in her neck clenched. “Yeah, we saw it.”
“Then you have to know we’re on the same side now.” Déjà vu swirled around my head. A few weeks ago, I’d made this same speech to Cage, and later to Rita. “These things don’t care who’s Omnistellar and who’s not. They might care who’s an anomaly, but only because they want to soak you in slime and turn you into one of them.” I risked a glance at the floor. My boot was inches away from a curved talon, at least a foot in length, protruding from a gory arm. “And that’s if you’re lucky—and you count turning into one of these things lucky. But I get the sense these ones aren’t here to harvest. They’re here to kill.”
Priya hesitated. She glanced over her shoulder, but I couldn’t see or hear what the others said to her. “Come on out,” she said at last. “We’ll talk about it.”
Well, that was something, at least. If she wanted to arrest me, she wouldn’t beat around the bush. She didn’t have to. I stepped gingerly around the mess on the floor and made myself walk with measured, normal steps rather than breaking into a run. Still, I couldn’t help a sigh of relief as I exited the med facility, even if I was now surrounded by cybernetic anomalies sent to hunt me down.
I glanced at Matt, but he didn’t meet my eyes. Instead he stared at the floor, an expression of barely suppressed horror on his face. I resisted the urge to reach for him. Did he wake to the same nightmares I did, to visions of the creatures tearing through his flesh?
I had new nightmares to replace those now. So that was fun.
Finn, as usual, remained silent, leaning against the wall and watching me with a carefully calculating expression. I looked from one to another. “Is anyone else alive on this ship?”
“We don’t know,” Priya replied. “We were in the holding cells with your friends when we felt the attack. We headed to the command center to see what was going on and found it the same way you did.”
“Wait.” I bit my lip, not wanting to ask, not wanting to know. “The command center. Do you mean the one on the first level or the second?”
“Down here. We were about to head upstairs when the power went out. We doubled back to security for lights. We haven’t seen or heard anyone else.”
I nodded, swallowing hard. “Don’t bother checking level one. Everyone in the command center is dead. My dad was alive, though. I left him in an office.”
“Cord is alive?” Hallam asked sharply.
How did they know my . . . of course. They worked for Omnistellar. I closed my eyes, exhausted. “Yeah. We were talking during the attack. He hit his head, and I couldn’t wake him up, so I went looking for help. Do you think . . . ?” I trailed off. It was their job to capture and imprison me. They were probably about to laugh in my face. My pride warred with the image of my father lying in a pool of his own blood until I whispered, “Do you think we could go get him?”
Priya and Hallam exchanged speaking looks. “I think we’re all on the same team,” Priya said at last. “For now.”
A burst of hope surged in my heart, so strong it almost hurt. “Then can you let the others go? The more of us, the better our chances. And . . . Reed can help Dad. Unless one of you is secretly a doctor, he might be the only one who can.”
She hesitated a moment, then turned. “Matt? You know them best. What do you think?”
My eyes locked with his, and suddenly he was once again the boy I’d known: tired, frightened, a little lost, but kind when it mattered. Then the hunter flickered back into place. “Keep your eye on Cage,” he said at last. “But . . . yeah. These things, they . . .” He swallowed hard. “We need all the help we can get.”
Priya nodded, accepting that. “All right. Then let’s—”
She never finished her sentence. As she turned toward the opposite end of the hall, a shriek pierced the corridor. Priya jerked her rifle up, but she was a fraction of a second too slow. The alien collided with her and tore her to the floor in a jumble of limbs and screams.