United: An Alienated Novel (30 page)

She slid out from beneath the ship and screamed across the hangar, “To the airlock! The shuttle’s back!”

After running like hell to the airlock doorway, she flattened her palm over the rubbery panel, and its molecules separated beneath her skin. She and Larish stepped inside while making a
hurry-up
motion to Syrine and Elle, who were sprinting fast enough to leave burn marks on the floor. The buzzing intensified. Twice the airlock door began to re-form, and each time Cara scrubbed her hands over it to leave an opening. When the girls were finally within reach, they dived through the hole and landed hard on their bellies. The barrier had just sealed when the floor rumbled with the force of the enormous hatch opening on the other side.

Everyone released a breath.

The chamber pressurized and the opposite door dissolved, leading to a long hallway carpeted with steam. Instantly, Cara’s gaze fixed on the end point of the corridor, where two bodies were slumped against the wall. In the moment before she realized they weren’t human, her heart lurched.

She jogged forward as quietly as she could. When she reached the Aribol bodies, she struggled to take in their details. Zane hadn’t lied about his kind. She couldn’t view them properly. Their forms glowed and shimmered at the edges, almost as if they were made of incandescent gasses.

There wasn’t time to study them any longer. Once she darted a glance up and down the intersecting hallway, finding it vacant, she used her com-sphere to contact Aelyx. He didn’t reply, not even to deny the summons, which caused her stomach to twist.

“Troy’s not answering either,” Elle whispered, her lower lip pinched between her teeth.

Syrine pulled out her sphere and began navigating its holographic directory. “You track Troy. I’ll lock on to Aelyx.” In moments, she displayed his position relative to theirs and gestured left. “This way, up three flights.”

“Troy, too,” Elle said. “They’re together.”

Larish adjusted his satchel, shifting the heavy bulk of soil behind him, and then the four of them set off down the hall. As they followed the signal, Cara darted frequent glances over her shoulders. The dim lighting, the dead bodies, the steady hiss of steam, all of it sent a cold finger down her spine. Larish, however, kept his eyes fixed on the walls as they passed.

“Remarkable,” he muttered under his breath while touching the surface and watching it part around his finger. “They’ve constructed the ship using a combination of manmade and organic materials. I wonder what species the walls are derived from.”

Cara didn’t share his fascination. She would be impressed when the Aribol stopped trying to annihilate her race.

Ahead of them, Syrine stopped in front of a slim doorway and brushed a hand over it. There was a cylindrical chamber inside, too narrow to fit all of them. “This must be the lift. We’ll have to go in pairs.”

Cara pushed her way to the front of the group and squeezed into the chute beside Elle, who was already inside. The door sealed and they shot upward so fast Cara nearly left her stomach behind. After two more abrupt stops and starts, she touched the door panel and tentatively poked her head out while Elle strode forward.

Cara crept out of the chute. Whatever this place was, the air was so thick with steam she could barely see the back of Elle’s head. Heat curled at the nape of Cara’s neck, making her dizzy. It was ungodly hot in here. She waved a hand to dispel the steam and noticed several enormous vats, like water towers, each connected by metallic ductwork.

This must be the shipwide humidifier.

Her movement caused the steam to drift, and something at the base of the nearest vat caught her eye. Her heart skipped a beat. A standard Marine issue jacket lay balled up on the floor. Elle saw it, too, and they shared a wide-eyed glance before both of them flew into action. Cara snatched the jacket and used it like a fan to clear the fog while Elle jogged to Troy’s beacon, which according to the map was less than a few yards away.

Cara tripped over something and found an Aribol body, and then another. Grit crunched beneath her soles, telling her how these creatures had died. Her pulse rushed as she stepped over more of the dead. She silently prayed her loved ones weren’t among them.

The macabre trail ended with Aelyx and Troy lying face up, their hands positioned atop their chests. At once, Cara checked their ribcages, and when she saw them rise and fall, she exhaled in relief. But the moment was fleeting. Just beyond them crouched an Aribol, very much alive and radiating fury.

She barely had time to register fear before she lost control of her body. The next thing she knew, she was on the floor beside Elle, struggling to breathe. The creature was inside her head. She could feel its rage at the lives Aelyx and Troy had taken. It wanted to kill them all, but its leaders had given it instructions to keep them alive until others arrived to probe their minds. Then they would be executed and flushed out the nearest port, while the fleet liquefied the inhabitants of Earth.

Cara heard footsteps, and Larish fell down beside her. She struggled to bring him into focus as her face grew numb and her sight dimmed. Then as suddenly as she’d lost control of her body, it was hers to command again. She sucked in a loud breath. Oxygen rushed through her veins, restoring her senses, and she sat up to find the Aribol writhing on the floor, its holographic skin covered in dirt. Above it stood Syrine.

“It couldn’t control me,” she said in wonder, brushing the soil from her hands. “I felt it penetrate my consciousness, and I pushed it out.”

Elle rose to her knees. “I tried blocking my thoughts, and it didn’t work.”

“So did I,” Larish added.

“Maybe it’s because of the ‘emotional healer’ thing.” Cara crawled to Aelyx’s side and tried to rouse him. He wouldn’t wake. Neither would Troy. “It did something permanent to them. Can you remove its influence like you removed Aisly’s?”

“I can try.”

“Others are coming,” Elle cautioned. “I sensed it.”

While Syrine bent over Troy and gently pried open his eyelids, Cara looked for a place large enough to hide all six of them.
Behind the vats
, she thought. But that was a temporary fix. She noticed the Nova Staff on the floor and picked it up, glancing at Larish. “Parts of the ship are alive, right? If the walls are made of flesh, maybe burning the elevator doorway—”

“Will cauterize it and lock out the Aribol,” he finished. “It’s worth a try.”

“We have to hurry,” Elle said as she helped pat down Aelyx for the cube. “Now that the shuttle has returned, there’s no reason to delay the invasion. I’ll use my sphere to scan the ship for its fuel core.”

Larish tipped his head at the boiler equipment. “I’ll look for an off switch. A drastic loss of humidity may very well kill them.”

Cara tried to ignore the number of
may
s and
might
s in their plan, focusing instead on removing the Nova sphere from its cradle and replacing it with the cube she’d pried from Aelyx’s back pocket. As soon as the cube clicked into place, she cradled the staff in the crook of one arm and ran back to the elevator.

Steam and soil had formed a thin layer of mud on the floor, causing her ballet flats to skid past the chute doorway. After righting herself, she took two backward steps, then two more, unsure of how large a blast to expect from the cube. Finally she raised the staff and brought it down, focusing on the door’s fleshy membrane as she aimed.

She wasn’t prepared for the surge of energy that passed through her. Before she could brace herself, she landed hard on the floor. She stood and rubbed her tailbone, then limped toward the elevator to find she hadn’t simply scorched the doorway. She’d obliterated the entire chute and three walls behind it she hadn’t even known were there.

“Bad news,” she shouted to Elle and Larish as she ran, slipping, toward them. “Instead of sealing the doorway, I blew it wide open.”

Syrine didn’t look up. She was still bent over Troy. Aelyx was out cold, and Larish had disappeared to somewhere behind the boiler vats. Only Elle answered, talking to Cara while studying the holographic map she’d displayed in midair.

“I scanned the ship for traces of radiation and found this.” Elle pointed to a dot on the map that pulsed like a beating heart. “It has to be the fuel core.”

Cara traced a finger along the path from their current position to the core and noticed they were on the same level. She turned and studied the walls she’d opened behind the elevator shaft. The fleshy membrane had begun to repair itself. “We can travel between walls. If we’re quiet, no one will catch us.”

Elle charged forward and pocketed her sphere. “Let’s go.”

“Wait,” Syrine called, still peering into Troy’s eyes. “I’ve almost reached him.”

“There’s no time,” Cara told her, following to the wall Elle had just opened. “We’ll check in once we make it to the core. If no one’s found a solution by then …” She didn’t finish the sentence, but the slowness of Syrine’s nod said she understood.

The time for evacuation was over.

Aelyx awoke abruptly from the deepest sleep of his existence. One moment he was all but dead, and then his eyes snapped open and he was fully alert, as if someone had switched him from
off
to
on
.

He sat bolt upright and registered his surroundings. He was still inside the boiler room, but someone had moved him in between the wall and a floor-level air duct. He heard male voices, Troy’s and Larish’s, though he couldn’t see them. Then Syrine touched his shoulder and asked if he was all right, and all his memories returned in a jolt.

“What happened?” he asked, pushing himself onto all fours. “Where is everyone?”

Syrine helped him stand. “Larish is looking for a way to shut down the boiler.” A grunt echoed in the distance, and pain sliced through Aelyx’s skull. Syrine winced, indicating she’d felt it, too. “Troy is holding off the Aribol reinforcements with what’s left of his soil. Every time one of them dies, we all feel it.”

Aelyx shook off the pain and glanced around for the Nova Staff. He needed to find the fuel core so the others could escape. “Where’s the staff?”

Syrine avoided his gaze.

“Where is it?” he repeated.

“Cara and Elle have it.”

His brows hitched, and on instinct his thighs tensed to run after them. “No! I drew the short slip.”

“None of that matters. It’s too late. Either we neutralize the Aribol so they can’t pilot the fleet, or Cara and Elle will detonate the fuel cell—whichever comes first.”

Aelyx forced himself to clear his mind. “Point me to Larish.”

He found the scholar on his hands and knees, peering beneath a cylindrical tank. Larish sat back on his heels with a pained expression that told Aelyx he hadn’t liked what he’d found. “Nothing,” Larish said when he noticed Aelyx approaching. “I can’t find a single way to compromise the system.”

Aelyx crouched down. “Explain to me how it works. Maybe I’ll see something you missed.”

“Well.” Larish pointed at the ductwork near the elevator. “Their humidity system operates similar to our body’s circulatory system. The intake ducts are like blue veins, pumping deoxygenated blood to the heart. They channel recycled air here”—pointing at the series of connected vats—“where the vapor is infused with fresh oxygen and steam, and then sent through these ducts, which are like red veins, feeding all the vents inside the ship.”

“Okay,” Aelyx said. That made sense. “How do we figuratively slit its wrists?”

“We can’t. There are too many failsafe seals. If we destroy the connection between one tank, the system is designed to reroute to the next, and so on.”

“So we’d have to destroy everything on this level.” And because the pressurized steam would kill them all in the process, that plan was no better than detonating the fuel cell. “Or poison the bloodstream.”

A mass summons issued on their com-spheres. Cara’s image appeared alongside Elle’s, both of them huddled in the dark. “We’re here,” Cara said. “The fuel cell’s on the other side of this wall.” She paused for a pregnant beat before asking, “Any luck on your end?”

Troy and Syrine hadn’t answered the summons, likely because they were engaged in battle on the opposite end of the room. Larish cocked his head and began muttering gibberish to himself, which left Aelyx to deliver the bad news. “So far, no.”

Darkness concealed the fear in Cara’s gaze, but she couldn’t hide the tremble in her reply. “We can’t let them launch the fleet …”

“How far away are you?” he asked, and used his eyes to say the rest. He’d promised to face death by her side, and that was what he wanted. When the universe reclaimed their bodies, they would go together as one.

The subtle shake of Elle’s head said
too far
.

He fought against the fresh ache in his chest, determined not to let his voice waiver. “I love you,” he said, strong and sure. “Both of you. And I regret nothing.”

“I love you, too,” Cara said. “I’m glad we went down swinging. You were right. What we have is worth fighting for.”

Aelyx didn’t know what more to say. They were out of time. “No goodbyes?”

“No goodbyes,” Cara agreed, and the transmission ended.

Aelyx’s shoulders rounded. This was happening too fast.

Larish continued muttering under his breath until he abruptly shouted, “Poison the bloodstream!” and grabbed Aelyx’s wrist hard enough to wrench it from his hand. Larish took off like a comet, towing Aelyx toward the elevator shaft. “I have an idea,” he yelled. “Tell her to wait!”

Cara stepped through the wall’s opening into a small compartment that reminded her of her late grandmother’s storm cellar. The ceiling here was so low she had to stoop over to avoid hitting her head, and the only source of light was the faint glow leaking through the seams of a boxy fuel tank in the center of the room. Unlike the rest of the ship, this area was bone dry, but still blisteringly hot.

It was about to get a lot hotter.

Elle approached from behind and laced her long, slim fingers between Cara’s. It might’ve been the first time Elle had ever initiated touch, and it made Cara smile. They shared a watery glance that overflowed with all the things they didn’t have time to say. With one last squeeze, Cara released Elle’s hand and strode toward the fuel cell.