But The Stars Read online

  “We didn’t. Not for months. They were there, of course. All around us. We saw them, and then we didn’t. They made sure we never really knew what we were dealing with. Not until they breached the hold of the shuttle. Even then, it wasn’t until the shuttle docked with the Acheron that we realized we were facing an infestation.

  “At first, it was inconsistencies. We thought the issues were stress related. People making dumb mistakes due to the gee-loading, but—”

  Something’s wrong. Dante isn’t sure what, but she can feel it. Wrong is a logical conclusion, not an emotional conviction, and yet the fine hairs on her arms rise up in alarm. She stalls, looking in the empty bottle, wanting more time to work through her reasoning. She’s not sure why she feels anxious and that’s perhaps the most unsettling point of all. Something is horribly wrong with this interview.

  Dante grew up in Alabama until about the age of ten. Tornados were as much a part of summer there as the honeysuckle flowering outside her bedroom window or tomatoes ripening on the vine. A few large drops of rain falling from an otherwise clear blue sky were a sure sign of trouble. Turn and there would be a wall of cloud looming behind her. Sometimes it wasn’t what she saw or heard that would set her heart racing, but rather what was absent. Birds would stop calling. Insects would fall silent. The message was always the same. Danger. Time to go. Right now, in orbit around a dwarf star that’s probably not even visible from Earth, she feels the same way. But they fled, they left WISE 5571 and its unusual planet P4, abandoning it several light years away. Why is she panicking now? Why is she having an anxiety attack for no other reason than the memories she’s recalling?

  When Dante was eight, at the park with her dad, she was caught in the open by a tornado. The thing that surprised her most was that there was no twister as such. All the pictures and news reports had lied. If she’d seen a dark swirling funnel reaching down to the ground, it would have been obvious, but she was too close to the vortex.

  Sticks, branches, leaves, even bits of wood torn off a nearby barn all circled in the air, swaying as though held under the spell of some ancient wizard. Dust kicked off the ground, racing in toward her. A power transformer, high on a pole, exploded in a burst of sparks. Lines fell, arcing as they danced across the road. An invisible monster tore through the park, coming for her, ripping trees from the dirt and tossing them aside, dragging bushes and saplings into the sky.

  Her dad grabbed her and ran across the thick, lush grass, sprinting toward a concrete bathroom next to the parking lot. Dante was more horrified at being shoved into the men’s side of the bathroom than the sound of what could have been a freight train roaring past outside.

  Rain whipped inside the bathroom, swirling around the cinderblock barrier lining the entrance, stinging her face. Her dad dragged her into a stall and slammed the metal door shut behind them. They crouched beside a stainless-steel toilet bowl, shivering as the temperature plunged. Water soaked the floor, being pushed into waves by the wind and lapping at her shoes. The metal roof flexed along with the walls of the cubicle. She screamed. It was as though the monster outside was breathing, hunting, searching for her, threatening to tear the roof off and snatch her.

  Once the chaos passed, they ventured back outside and looked up. There, looming high above the town, stood Leviathan. Dark clouds seethed with hate. Crackles of lightning lashed out in anger. Four twisting columns of darkness and death reach down from the clouds, tearing open homes, destroying roofs and flipping cars. The silence that followed was as painful then as it is now. Dante might be in a starship on the leading edge of a spiral arm within the vast Milky Way, but for her it’s as though warning sirens are sounding in the distance. She can feel it—the prickling sensation in her skin, the same thing she felt back on the swings when the first drops of rain fell.

  The nurse notices the glazed look in her eyes. “But?”

  “Can I have some more water?” she asks. Dante needs some time—a bit of space. She needs to breathe.

  “Okay,” the nurse says, looking a little befuddled for a moment, unsure how to process that request. He seems torn between pushing her to continue and not wanting to upset her. Dante holds the bottle out, holding her arm unnaturally straight, with her elbow locked. She’s probing. Curious. Looking for a reaction. Nothing. He doesn’t notice.

  The nurse gets to his feet, taking the flask from her.

  “I won’t be long.”

  She smiles and nods, avoiding eye contact. Instead, her eyes dart around, desperate to find something to settle on. Nothing’s wrong. Nothing’s out of place. Perhaps that’s what she finds unnerving. An empty medi-bay. Even if there aren’t any patients, there is always staff and robotic orderlies, things left out, equipment being serviced. This place is crisp and clean. Nothing is worn. It’s too perfect.

  As the nurse approaches the door it responds automatically, sliding open and then closing behind him. Dante slips off the bed, dropping to her bare feet without making a sound.

  “Is everything okay?” a voice asks from behind her.

  She turns, addressing the young doctor from earlier.

  “Ah, yes. Everything’s fine.”

  Dante’s on the verge of panicking. Where the hell did the doctor come from? Somehow, Dante manages an obligatory reply, saying, “Ah, good.”

  Oh, what a beautiful smile, Dante thinks. Never before has such a nice, warm, friendly gesture screamed so loudly of betrayal.

  “Wh—Where did you go?” Dante asks, walking softly toward a set of cabinets.

  “What do you mean?” the doctor asks, following her. “I’ve always been here.”

  Dante ignores her. She opens the cabinets, knowing full well what she’s about to find. Nothing. They’re empty. She rushes along the wall, following the curve of the floor as it bends upward past a broad window facing out into space. She madly opens cabinet after empty cabinet.

  “You’re stressed,” the doctor says. “Your heart’s racing.”

  With a single, violent act, Dante rips the medi-monitor from her clavicle, tearing away the wires snaking across her neck and down her chest. She scrunches them up, tossing them at the doctor’s feet in disgust.

  The doctor seems genuinely shocked. She comes to a halt before the tiny medical device, looking down at it in dismay.

  “Where the hell am I?” Dante asks.

  “You’re on board the Clara Barton, a medical support ship, part of the Deep Space Command.”

  “The Barton?” Dante asks, backing away from the doctor, edging next to the window and watching as stars drift past with the motion of the ship as it turns, imparting a sensation akin to gravity. “I know the Barton. She never came this deep.”

  “That was a long time ago. She’s been refurbished since your day.”

  Dante’s trembling hands reach for the wall, touching at the smooth surface, feeling the texture of a plastic panel beneath her fingertips.

  Mentally, she struggles with the math. Relativistic physics was never her forte. Given her time in transit to WISE 5571, the time spent exploring the system and the time spent fleeing here, roughly thirty years have elapsed for her, with most of that spent in hyper-sleep, slowing the aging process. During that time, over a hundred years passed on Earth. The flight time for the Barton had to be similar to the Acheron’s, which would mean a difference of no more than twenty years between their launches. Dante taps her fingers, struggling with the arithmetic. It’s possible, but something’s horribly wrong. She can feel it.

  “Please,” the doctor says. “You’re suffering from shock. It’s not unusual given a long-duration hyper-sleep. You need time to adjust. Your mind is confusing past and present.”

  “Get away from me!” Dante yells, lowering her head. She clenches her teeth, feeling a rush of blood pulsing in her neck. “Where are the others? Where’s the rest of my crew?”

  “They’re fine,” is not the answer she wants and Dante finds her heart thumping at the thought they’re all dead. She pulls a s
tainless-steel cart from beside one of the beds, rolling it between her and the doctor, putting a barrier between them.

  The doctor is calm. “Look at yourself. Think about what you’re doing. This makes no sense.”

  “I’m warning you,” Dante replies, alternating between watching the doctor and checking each of the cabinets as she backs through the medical bay. All of the shelves are empty.

  “You’re panicked. That’s understandable. We can help.”

  The male nurse returns. As soon as he steps through the door, he puts the bottle down on a counter and rushes toward them.

  “Stay back,” Dante yells. She shoves the cart, sending it spinning across the floor and blocking the nurse, forcing him to grab at it. She pulls another cart from the next bay, again using it to keep some distance between her and the doctor.

  The woman appeals to her. “You’re hurt—not physically, but mentally. You need to let us help you.”

  “Let us help you,” the nurse says, appealing for calm. “So we can return you to your crew.”

  “Just like you helped Angstrom?” she asks with a quiver in her voice.

  “Yes, just like we helped Angstrom,” the doctor replies, holding her hands out in front of her as though she were calming a horse.

  Spittle flies from Dante’s lips as she yells, “Angstrom’s a unit of measure, you assholes!”

  The male nurse moves out wide, rolling beds away from the wall so he can approach from the side. Dante raises her foot, shoving the closest bed so it skews sideways, blocking his approach. She charges at the doctor, pushing her into the wall.

  “Get her!” the doctor yells, scratching at Dante’s arms.

  The nurse vaults one of the beds. Dante scrambles, pushing carts and sending them spinning. Boots pound on the floor behind her. Steel trays clatter to the ground. Her bare feet slip on the floor, slowing her. She reaches for the door, desperate to trigger the sensor and bolt into the corridor. Where is she going? She doesn’t know. Her impulse to flee is irrational. There’s nowhere to hide on a space station. All she knows is she has to get out of medical. Hands grab at her waist, but she twists, pulling away.

  The door slides open, only there’s nothing on the other side. No floor. No walls. No shapes or colors of any kind, just the impenetrable darkness. Her fingers touch at an invisible membrane, pushing against the barrier, slowly breaking through and disappearing from sight. Behind her, the nurse trips. As he falls, he reaches out, snatching desperately at her heel, clipping her foot and causing her to trip. Dante collides with the doorframe.

  Tentacles reach from the darkness, wrapping around her arms and drawing her closer. Much to her surprise, Dante’s not frightened. Not anymore. It’s as though the alien appendages are welcoming her, calling her home. They slither around her legs, creeping up her thighs and over her waist, lifting her off the floor. She looks back, seeing both the doctor and the nurse standing there motionless. They’ve been frozen mid-stride. It’s as though someone paused a video clip.

  Dante smiles as she’s drawn into the void beyond the door. The lights of the medical bay fade, but the stars—the stars beyond the vast bay window—the stars shine brightly. At this distance, they’re nothing more than pinpricks of light, but they burn in defiance of the darkness around her.

  Cap

  “Dante?”

  A hand slaps her cheek, not roughly, just enough to get her attention. Dante blinks, struggling to take in her surroundings.

  “Hey, are you in there? Are you still with me?”

  Cap kneels before her. Blood seeps from some loose skin that’s been torn from the side of his skull, exposing the bone and matting down his hair. Dark bruises mark his bare arms. Sweat beads on his forehead. His trousers have been shredded in an explosion, half torn from his legs. Thin lines of deep red blood trace his muscles. Gently, he cups her jaw, turning her to face him.

  “I thought I’d lost you.”

  “They’re inside,” she says, unable to understand what’s happening to her. “They’re in my head.”

  “Not anymore. You’re okay now. Come on, we’ve got to get you out of here.”

  Cap hoists Dante’s arm over his shoulder, helping her to her feet.

  Dante grimaces. Pain surges through her right leg. Her trousers are soaked with blood. She limps in the heavy gravity, struggling to hold on to him. It feels as though someone’s dragging her down, trying to pull her from him, wanting to throw her to the floor.

  At 2.2G, tripping on P4 is akin to falling from a roof on Earth and Dante struggles to maintain her footing. She understands the danger of trauma in a heavy gravity well. The effect of blood loss is magnified. Her body is working overtime to survive in this hellish, unnatural environment. Most of the blood in her body pools in her legs, low to the ground. Her heart muscles are desperately trying to circulate blood to her head, but her blood pressure is fluctuating, causing her to feel faint.

  “What happened?” she asks as they stagger down a narrow corridor. Steam drifts through the darkness, escaping from ruptured cooling pipes. Amber warning lights flash behind them, casting shadows before them. Metal groans, buckling under the external pressure of four atmospheres. With the base on the verge of collapse, tremors rumble through the superstructure, coming in waves.

  “One of those things got inside the reactor. Went straight for the core. Lit up the containment grid like a goddamn supernova.”

  “We’re still down here?” she asks, stating the obvious, struggling with shock and disbelief.

  “Oh, yeah,” he says. “Where were you? Where did they take you?”

  “The Barton.”

  “That old shithole,” Cap says with a bitter laugh.

  “It looked new.”

  “What did they want?”

  “They’re trying to understand what we know about them. They want to know how we figured all this out.”

  “What did you tell them?” he asks, letting go of her for a moment so he can duck below a fallen support beam. “You didn’t tell them anything, right?”

  “I—I don’t think so. I don’t know.”

  Dante crouches beneath the twisted metal, feeling the I-beam tremble as the internal walls of the base flex. Humidity hangs in the air. Moisture runs down the walls. Outside, it’s a hundred below. Snow billows across the frozen plain.

  “I don’t think so,” she says, repeating that point, fighting not to become distracted by her fleeting memories.

  “Good. Good.”

  “What now?” she asks. “What’s next?”

  “First, we get the fuck off this hellhole, then we report back to Deep Space Command. We’ve got to give them everything we have. They need to know what they’re up against.”

  She nods, agreeing. The two of them stagger to an airlock leading to the shuttlecraft waiting out on the ice. Mags is there, standing beside the entrance, but she’s in a trance. Her eyes have rolled into the back of her head, revealing the whites along with a spiderweb of red veins and at least one burst blood vessel. She’s speaking, but not aloud. Her lips move, shaping words but they’re barely a whisper. Fingers twitch, carrying out unseen actions.

  “Mags,” Dante says, pleading with her, trying to get her attention. Like Dante, she’s been trapped in the prison of her own mind, navigating some ethereal dream. Mags is being interrogated by the aliens, probably on another version of the Barton.

  Cap rests Dante on the edge of a mining crate. His hands are shaking, something she only now notices. To her, he’s a tower of strength, but he’s simply hiding his fears better than she is.

  First Lieutenant Asiko Capidastrianani wasn’t even supposed to be here. The Acheron was originally captained by a veteran—Colonel Sandy Wilkinson, but she was injured in the rapid decompression test of the Centauri drydock. Someone up high tapped Cap on the shoulder, telling him this was a good career move. Dante had her doubts about a political appointment, but Cap has distinguished himself, listening to the advice of his officers and avoid
ing the trap of an I-can-do-no-wrong ego that plagues so many in command.

  “Hey. Hey,” Cap says, taking Mags by the shoulders and shaking her softly. “Come on. You’ve got to fight this.”

  “Where is everyone?” Dante asks, taking stock of what’s happening and where they are. “Have you heard from Benson?”

  “He’s in low orbit, ready for rendezvous, but the radio’s out. The main antenna collapsed when the fuel reserves blew out on the ice.”

  “What about the engineering team? Mac, Angel and Vichy?”

  “They’re dead.”

  Those two words hit her like a rogue planet coming out of the darkness. Two words delivered with brutal efficiency, the kind that ignores the enormity of lives being lost in an instant.

  Cap tries to turn Mags around, wanting to guide her into the airlock, but she resists and fights to remain facing down along the corridor. He’s injured and struggles to pull her away. Mags always was strong. She lashes out, striking at him, but not with clenched fists. Her motion is like that of someone sleepwalking, fighting off imaginary demons.

  “We don’t have time for this shit,” Cap says, frustrated. He slumps to one side, colliding with the coolant pipes running along the wall.

  “We’re not leaving her,” Dante says, hobbling to her friend and trying to get her attention.

  Mags is more than a crewmate. Although it’s tempting to claim their friendship stems from a common hometown, that town is Staten Island. With twenty-seven million people calling New York City home, Staten Island is hardly the small town Alabama of Dante’s childhood. Were it not for the colonization program offering deep space careers to scientists, engineers and doctors, they’d have never met, even though they lived within five miles of each other as teens. Sharing anecdotes kindled an affinity during training. Lou’s Deli. Pappa’s Pizza. Struggling to get a seat on the Staten Island ferry. Being groped on the subway. Listening to Christmas carols in Battery Park. With five years between them, Dante was leaving high school as Mags was just beginning to find her groove. Little did they know they’d travel to the stars together.