Page 86 of The Program

‘The hangar bay.’

‘You have a ship ready and waiting?’ he asked.

‘Of course,’ I replied indignantly, offended that he would believe me so incompetent. I understood that he only remembered me as an untested cadet, but I thought it would have been obvious now that my training was extensive.

He held up his hands in the universal sign of surrender, his stride faltering slightly as the motion interrupted the smooth leaps of his sprint. ‘I was just checking.’

‘Are these guys with us or against us?’ Dorian called out, gesturing behind him at the mob of soldiers on our tail.

‘They’re with us!’ Hum’Rit shouted back.

‘I don’t have enough food for this many people,’ I warned him.

‘There’s an emergency stock of Nutri-Bars in the hangar bay. We can grab some cases on the way through,’ Gwym assured me.

Just then, a bloodied Corporal Stanson shoved his way to the forefront of the crowd, weaved his way around the carts and kept pace with those of us at the front. One of his arms was hanging limply by his side, and he was clutching it close to avoid it swinging wildly and causing more damage. There was blood seeping from multiple cuts, some nasty bruises forming on his swelling face, and he was favouring his left leg. Otherwise he seemed fine, and I figured that most of the blood staining his uniform was from other people.

‘Actually,’ he huffed out, his breathing stilted from exhaustion, ‘Eloria went to the hanger bay to prepare another ship for departure, but she can’t get in. Apparently, it’s under quarantine.’

‘Is someone sick?’ Henrik piped up at the word typically associated with medical emergencies, but the sinking feeling in my gut told me that it didn’t have anything to do with an illness…

‘No. Some sort of beast was brought onto the station through a recently docked ship, though no one can explain how it got here. It’s wreaking havoc in the entire docking bay trying to break free,’ said Stanson, confirming my fears.

‘Actually…’ I began sheepishly. ‘He’s with me.’

CHAPTER 32

ALEXANDER

The creature was alternating between clawing at the quarantine shields and throwing itself at them. I was watching from my hiding spot behind the computers in the control room, Morgrid taking up the space beside me. Neither one of us could really fit, but even though we’d barricaded the door with desks and cabinets in an attempt to keep the vicious thing out, I doubted it would do much to stop it.

Luckily for us, it didn’t seem interested in exploring so much as trying to break onto Nova Station and leave the docking bay behind. Unluckily for us, we weren’t the only ones who’d taken note of the threat and we were locked inside with it with no way out.

I braved a glance out from over the top of the desk, the holo-screens no longer in the way, and tried to get a better look at it. A long, purple, lithely muscled body. Four ears, all swivelling in different directions. Six large red eyes. A tail that could kill in an instant. I caught a flash of bright red, the same shade as its eyes, glinting from within its snout. But it was its claws that truly grabbed my attention, and not because of how wickedly sharp they looked. Long, black and curved, they seemed to drip with a red poison that, when smeared against the quarantine shield and the floor, looked remarkably like blood. But what made them so interesting to me was how much they reminded me of Tornu spikes. My gaze bounced between those claws and Morgrid’s spikes, something niggling at me, attempting to push through but unable to.

I could brush up against it, but as soon as we made contact it would rush off back into the recesses of my mind. It was almost on the tip of my tongue. I couldalmosttaste it, but still not quite.

The holo-tab on Morgrid’s belt started discretely buzzing, and both of us winced. We waited with bated breath to see if the creature would noticed, but it thankfully seemed too intent on breaking through the shield. Or it couldn’t hear, but with four ears I assumed it had better hearing than most, so I was hoping it was simply uninterested in us.

With delicate fingers – not the typical way I would describe any aspect of the burly Tornu woman – she pulled the holo-tab from its pouch. Her expression pinched at the caller, and she turned the screen around for me to see, bypassing the hologram. Tormik.

‘Answer it,’I mimed. Her eyes darted to the chaos right outside the window and she shook her head.‘Answer it,’I pushed, miming turning the volume all the way down and putting the device against her ear.

When she still didn’t comply, I snatched it from her hands and did it myself. Tormik’s voice came through like he was at the other end of an endless tunnel and the echo barely reached me, but I was able to discern what he said.

‘We’re opening the quarantine shield. Artemis is overriding the controls. Stand back.’

Feeling like my eyes were about to pop out of my head, I swung my wild gaze back to Morgrid. She must have caught what he said because her own expression was practically feral with fear.

Motherly instinct must have won out, however, because with one last panicked look at the docking bay’s shielded doors, she leapt over the desks, smashed through the window, and dropped into a crouch in front of the creature.

He turned to her, already growling and that blood-like substance dripped from his snout like drool. She growled back, her own sounding just as ominous and deadly. The creature snapped its teeth at her in warning, which made another alarm bell ring in my head. Why wasn’t it attacking?

And that’s when I saw it. The three eyes on the left side of its face flickered toward the blocked-off exit. It didn’t want to fight. It wanted freedom.

Its aggression came from fear.

I was in the process of figuring out how to stop Morgrid from hurting it when she made her first move. With a shriek that sounded like it belonged in the nightmares of nightmares, claws that matched the creature’s extended from the tips of her fingers that she used to slice five jagged lines downits side. Blood welled immediately, spilling over and dripping to the floor, mixing with the venom until I couldn’t tell which was which. It whimpered and whined, backing away from the new threat as quickly as it could. It twisted its big head to sniff at the damage while keeping its eyes on her.

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