Excerpts: Adrift

 

The following is an excerpt from Bloodhunters v1: Bad Blood, Chapter 02.07. Some of it might make more sense in context.

ED.02500.08.15

Space is cold. You wouldn’t think that was a controversial opinion, but if you were to phrase it that way in front of Raven or Trenyn, you might find yourself the target of a mini-lecture about the nature of temperature. After all, temperature is the measurement of the kinetic energy of molecules, and in space there are no molecules to measure. Therefore, it’s more accurate to say space has no temperature, though it does tend to make things in it cold. Any heat transfer you might experience is actually the temperature of cosmic radiation, which… and this is the point where most listeners zone out, vowing to keep their mouths shut around science geeks.

But if, instead of asking a scientist, you were to ask Yna, who currently floated in the empty blackness without the benefit of a spaceship… She would inform you that yes, space is indeed very cold. Especially when you’re naked. As Yna floated helplessly, protected from the vacuum by her mysterious energy form, she wondered how she could still be alive. Or was she? Could this be the afterlife? Floating in nothingness for eternity?

I must be alive, she thought. I have to pee.

So apparently her energy form gave her the ability to survive in the void of space. This was an amazing realization. If she could survive here, she could survive anywhere. Well, except for underwater, of course. Water had a tendency to short-circuit her power. Still, the scientific implications were staggering. She had always assumed that her energy form consumed oxygen, like fire. Obviously, it did not. The practical possibilities were pretty impressive as well. In a pinch, she might be able to exit a spacecraft to do emergency welding on the outer hull.

But as quickly as all these thoughts went through her head, they were pushed aside by more urgent considerations. She was in space. She was light-years from anyone who knew her. No one knew exactly where she was. She had no way to send a message. While she could propel herself to some degree, it would take her a million years to reach the nearest planet, even if she knew which way to go.

And worse yet, she knew she couldn’t stay in her energy form for too long. She always got sick when she reverted to human form, and experience had taught her that the longer she was energized, the sicker she would be when human again. The longest she had ever managed to stay energized was just over two hours. And that time she had paid for it, by coughing up blood for hours and nursing a harsh sunburn for a week. Being energized also made her very tired. Sooner or later she would lose consciousness, at which time her body would automatically revert to human form. And when that happened here, trapped in the infinite emptiness, she would die.

She was screwed. 

Even if it was futile, there had to be something she could do. She tried sending out a telepathic message. Of course, she wasn’t telepathic, but there was little point piddling over the small details now. Some species could read the minds of non-telepaths. Maybe one was listening now.

Okay, probably not, but it was pointless to just float here waiting for death. She had to think... The research station! That would be the closest object to her in space. Of course it would still take many lifetimes for her to reach it, but at least it gave her a direction. But... what direction was that? Yna was good at starmapping, and had learned a bit about stellar navigation when she’d been a pirate. But that was in a cartographer’s study, with maps and pens and other instruments at her fingertips. Floating here, in an unfamiliar area of space, it was a lot different.

However. She’d been heading towards the research station when her ship had exploded. She had just come from Vikara Prime, and she knew that the station was towards the outer rim of the solar system. Yna rotated around, taking in all the stars, until she centered herself on Vikara’s sun. She considered. Would Vikara Prime be closer? Yna doubted it. Her ship had flown for a good while before it exploded. Besides, both Vikara Prime and the research station were both impossibly far away, so she was as good as dead whichever way she went. With that cheery thought, Yna turned herself directly away from the sun and propelled herself forward. Rationally she knew that she would never reach it before she died, but it was nice to have a destination. As she flew through space, she recalled the events that had brought her here. 

Bloodstone had sent her on a mission, to apprehend a rather cunning villain named Asdith. He was wanted for murder on twelve planets. There were at least four bounties on his head, from various sources. Bloodstone wasn’t even sure which bounty they would collect. They would probably just sell Asdith to the highest bidder. 

Yna found and caught Asdith quickly and easily. Too easily. She should have been more suspicious, but she was excited about having done such a good job. So excited that she nearly forgot her secondary mission. On her way back to the Bloodwind, she was to stop off at Vortal Station, a large research vessel that studied Marae. The Marae were a species of shapeshifters, like Yna’s crewmate Dervish. Until recently, Marae had only been found on one of Grunthar’s moons. The Grunthians even claimed to have engineered the species. But now a few had been discovered in the asteroid belt outside the Vikara system.

One Marae, Vraxx, had worked for Lord Vermon of Valos. Whisper believed that Vraxx framed IGP Officer Alterra Sarr for the destruction of the IGP Space Station. So Yna was asked to stop by Vortal Station and just see if they had more information on the species. Maybe Vraxx had visited the asteroid belt. Maybe the scientists had developed ways to track Marae. It was probably a pointless stop, but it never hurt to ask.

A few hours after Yna set a course for the station, she went to the back of her vessel to check on her prisoner. But what she found was a trap. Her “prisoner” was actually an android, an artificial duplicate of Asdith meant to throw bounty hunters off the scent. And doing a damn good job, Yna thought. Yna was just about to turn the ship back around, but the android had one more nasty surprise for her. 

When the android exploded, Yna reflexively changed to her energy form. The explosion ruptured Yna’s tiny ship, causing several smaller blasts throughout the vessel, and blowing Yna out into space. Which was a lucky deal, because otherwise she would still have been inside the ship when the engines finally joined the bandwagon and blew apart, all but vaporizing the ship.

And that’s how Yna came to be here, in the cold blackness, on a doomed course towards Vortal Station. She was moving pretty quickly, actually, but distances in space were something on the vast side, so she knew she would only get so far. After about an hour, Yna started to get tired. She looked behind her. Vikara’s sun didn’t look any farther away than it had when she started. Not that she expected it to. There weren’t a lot of options available to her at the moment, so Yna kept on going.

Another hour. Probably. Yna was exhausted. All she wanted was to turn off her power and go to sleep. And she was very tempted to do so. She could still see no sign of any space station, and she was starting to get dizzy. She was just contemplating taking a short break when something hit her. Something big. And then there was nothing.

Blackness. Alarms blaring in the distance. Mechanical whirring. Dull pain, followed by cool wind. A whoosh, a metallic clang - a door closing? Skin burning, then cooling. More mechanical whirring. Electronic beeping. Pinpricks. Blackness.

Yna dreamed of nothing. She slowly regained consciousness, one sense at a time. For several minutes she lay there, eyes closed, listening. A steady beep. A heart monitor, chiming at a calm rate. She wondered if it was hers. She opened her eyes slowly, dreading the light. Fortunately the room was dim. She was in some sort of... medical facility? Was this Vortal Station? She sat up and looked down at her body. She was naked, except for some wires and sensors stuck to her in various places. She was expecting third-degree burns, but her skin was fair and healthy.

Odd.

Yna looked around the room. No one else was present. She removed the wires from her body and tossed her legs over the side of the bed. Shakily she put her feet on the floor and tried to stand. She was a little weak, but overall she felt okay. She looked at her surroundings. There were fourteen beds. All of them were empty but one. The occupant of the last bed was covered by a bloodstained sheet. Yna nervously walked over to the bed.

Obviously the patient was dead. They wouldn’t just leave a bloody sheet draped over the body of a live patient, not over the head like that. And there wasn’t any monitoring equipment around this patient. Nothing scary, nothing to worry about. People die, even on space stations. But all the blood... Well, it was a research vessel after all, and they do sometimes have accidents in the name of science. Could have been a chemical explosion or something. 

But why was the body still just lying in the medical bay like this? Even if it was an autopsy, they should have rolled the body back into the freezer when they were done. Wouldn’t want him releasing any microbes and viruses and whatnot around live patients. 

And where were all the doctors?

Yna cautiously put her hand on the sheet. One quick look, just out of curiosity. It’s not disrespectful. She didn’t mean any harm. She just had to know. Yna took a deep breath and pulled back the sheet. And then she screamed.

It was a human woman. Or most of one. Her body had been ripped open from the base of the throat to her navel. But it wasn’t the surgical precision one would expect from an autopsy. The edges of her skin were jagged and ripped, like torn fabric. Several organs had been removed from her chest cavity, but not by a doctor - that much was obvious. Most of her ribs had been broken off, her heart and one lung were missing, her remaining lung was only half there, her stomach had been punctured, and her intestines were torn.

The woman had other wounds as well. She was missing an eye and an ear. She had several tears on her face, arms, neck, and chest. In some places shredded muscle hung out from the wounds, morbidly reminding Yna of pulled pork. Her left arm was badly broken, with splintered bone protruding from the skin. One of her legs was gone. It was missing from about mid-thigh. It looked as if it had been gnawed off. 

Yna had seen a lot of death in her lifetime. At times she had even been the one doing the killing. She had seen people shot, stabbed, blown up, and even ripped in half. She had always been able to distance herself from disturbing imagery, to disassociate herself from the horrors of reality and look at things rationally and calmly. But this woman - her one eye staring off into space, her bloody mouth open in an expression of horror - this woman chilled Yna to the bone, and made her sick to her stomach. Yna turned away, fell to her knees, and regurgitated.

Once she recovered, Yna stood up and explored a bit. She found a gown and put it on. The doorway was unlocked, but she didn’t want to leave this room just yet. Shouldn’t the doctors be back soon to check up on her? In hopes of learning something useful, Yna approached one of the nearby computers and browsed the system. The first thing she did was confirm what she already suspected - this was Vortal Station, the research vessel. A little more poking around and she found a map of the ship. She was indeed in the medical bay, which was adjacent to the main cargo airlock. Not the most popular configuration, but in this case it made sense - they were searching the asteroids for Marae, and the medbay would be the first stop for any they brought aboard.

The main bridge was three levels up and on the other end of the ship - really about as far from her as it could be. Yna tried to call the bridge, but the intercom didn’t work. Then she tried using the computer to locate the crew, but the search found nothing. Either the computer was broken or everyone else had evacuated. 

That was a chilling thought. Why would they evacuate? Well, obviously it had something to do with whatever killed her buddy over there. So, why not just stay in this room, and send a message? No good. All outside communications had to be done from the bridge. This kept the scientists from sharing - and selling - their discoveries behind their colleagues’ backs. So... to the bridge then. Or not. Yna was reluctant to leave this room without knowing what might be out there. She explored the computer further, stumbling across the ship’s logs.

First, she read the computer’s daily autolog. As she had guessed, she had been rescued by one of the station’s automatic probes. The probes were designed to scan the asteroids for anything unusual, especially life signs. Yna had been hit by an asteroid and knocked for a loop. A nearby probe then used its Levatech beam to pull her inside. Luckily she hadn’t reverted to her human form until she was inside the probe. Once inside the station, the medical droids must have gone to work on her.

How long had she been out? According to the computer, that had been two days ago. Well, this was all interesting, but it didn’t tell her what she needed to know. Yna began reading the message logs.

Message To Command 12453: 

We have set up our station near this asteroid field. This belt of debris was formed as the result of an exploded moon. The moon must have been the home to a community of Marae shapeshifters. A few Marae survived the explosion and continued to live on the asteroids. They are a hardy species - they require very little food and can breathe a variety of gases. Some have survived by burrowing into the rock and living off of the various chemical compounds. 

 The Marae are not easily found in the galaxy. This is only the second discovery of the species. The only other existing community of Marae is on the second moon of Grunthar, which houses their slave breeding labs. The Grunthians exercise absolute control over their Marae resources, and therefore this is the first time humans have had a chance to study this species.

 And it is a fascinating species. Their ability to change shape is unequaled in the galaxy. We look forward to studying this species as much as possible in the coming months.

 So far, every specimen we’ve rescued has died in our lab a few hours later. 

Message To Command 13422: 

We have acquired another specimen today. Due to the radioactivity of the asteroid belt, Marae 427 has lost most of his shapeshifting ability. When we found him, he had degenerated into a mass of tentacles without the ability to maintain cohesion. Wild Marae are often non-sapient, surviving on instinct and achieving self-awareness only after encountering other cultures. This Marae, however, appears to be rather intelligent, and has even tried to communicate with us.

 

Message to Command 13512: 

Marae 427 has given himself a name. “Xox” has picked up our language quite easily and now has perfectly normal conversations with us. We have constructed an outfit for him which allows him to walk freely about the ship, despite his lack of cohesion.

 

Message to Command 13515: 

Xox has escaped. Sometime during the night he disabled our security programs and stole a shuttle. The irony is that we were working on a treatment that might have eventually cured his shapeshifting disability.

 

While Yna found the story interesting, it didn’t tell her what was going on right now. She skipped ahead a few months and continued.

Message to Command 13624: 

We found another live one. Marae 521 is much larger than other Marae we’ve encountered. He is also more malleable: his shapeshifting ability is the greatest we’ve seen so far. However, the time spent in space and the radiation from the asteroid have rendered him insane. At first, we thought that he was simply having trouble achieving sapience, but we soon discovered he possesses a cunning intelligence. His violent sociopathic behavior has forced us to keep him confined to a cell.

 

Message to Command 13628: 

Please send help. It’s loose. I’m the only one left. Please sen 

AUTOSAVED. 

MESSAGE TIMED OUT. 

 

“Blazes,” Yna said, and stood back from the computer. She held her hand out in front of her and tried to ignite it with energy. Nope. Just as she suspected, she couldn’t change into her other form just yet. Her body needed to recuperate first. If she was going to make it to the bridge alive, she would need a weapon. There wasn’t much in this room. Yna rummaged through the medical instruments. Finally, she found an AON scalpel. It was a decent weapon; the superheated blade was designed both to cut and to cauterize. It wasn’t very large, but holding it made Yna feel less vulnerable. 

She tried to find a better weapon, but apparently someone else had already picked out the best stuff. Yna thought for a minute. She had been in the medical bay for two days. If the Marae was still on board, it obviously would have had time to get to her by now. So either it didn’t know she was here, or it couldn’t get into the medical lab. That was promising. The final message log had been written five days ago. According to the computer, the author had written it from the bridge. Which made sense, because that was the only place you could send a message. That wasn’t good.

Okay, but that was five days ago. There was no reason to believe the Marae was still up there. It could be anywhere in the vessel, returning to its previous kills for further nourishment. It wasn’t a pleasant thought, but it might be Yna’s only chance for survival. Yna used the computer to call up a map of the ship. She studied all the routes, committing them to memory as best as she could. She considered the most direct route and all alternate routes. 

Would the maintenance tunnels be safer? Maybe that would be less conspicuous. Then again, she knew nothing about this creature. It might have made those tunnels its home. At least in the hallways she would have room to move around. Okay then. Direct route it was. Yna approached the entrance to the medlab. She took a deep breath and opened the hatchway.

The hallway was deserted. Yna’s footsteps, while nearly silent for lack of footwear, still made an echoing rhythmic thud that resounded through the hallway. At least they sounded that way to Yna, whose senses were heightened with fear. After a few minutes, she became aware of a loud breathing sound. She almost panicked before she realized that it was her own. 

She made it to the lift without incident. If this creature was still alive and on board, it wasn’t on this level. Yna entered the lift and pressed the button for the bridge. The doors slid closed, and the lift hummed as it started towards its destination. Then it stopped, much too early, with a shuddering thud. Yna gasped. She pushed the buttons, but there was no response. She tried to pry the doors open, but they wouldn’t budge. 

Only one thing to do. Yna opened the top hatch and climbed through. Something was stuck in the elevator’s track, preventing it from moving further. There was very little light, so Yna used the AON scalpel to illuminate the track. She found a foreign object wedged in the track, and moved closer to investigate. Yna nearly shrieked. It was a human head.

Yna looked around and listened, but she was still alone. Still, knowing that it had been here, that it could still be here, in the shadows, gave Yna chills. But she knew she couldn’t stay here, or hide in the lift. 

Or could she? That was one possibility. She could go back into the lift, seal the hatch, and wait there until she was rested enough to change to her other form. Once she could use her energy form, she would be a much more formidable opponent.

But that wouldn’t work, for obvious reasons. First off, she had no idea how long it would be before she would be able to change forms again. She could starve to death first. Second, there was no reason to believe that this creature wouldn’t be able to break into the lift. And third, until she sent some sort of distress call from the bridge, there was no reason to believe help was coming. She was alone. She had to get a move on, and soon.

Yna couldn’t fix the lift. She didn’t want to spend any more time in the elevator shaft than necessary, but it looked like the only way to get any farther would be to climb. Small rungs lined the sides of the shaft, which she now used. Before she even got underway, however, something stopped her. A noise, from above. Some sort of groaning, which echoed down the shaft.

Oh, crap, thought Yna. She pulled out her AON scalpel and ignited the blade. Warily she looked upwards, for some sign of movement. And then she saw it. Only it wasn’t a monster she saw, but rather the bottom of another lift. It was shaking. Something was inside it, moving around. The lift began to move downwards, towards Yna. If it reached her, it would crush her. Yna had to get out of the shaft, and now. Yna was just a few meters below the door to the second level of the ship. She climbed the rungs until she was next to the hatchway, and looked for a way to open it. 

Above, the elevator shook noisily. Something snapped, and a wheel plummeted down the shaft, clanging its way from wall to wall, just passing Yna on its way down. The lift above lurched and squealed, and then moved towards Yna at high velocity. Yna quickly found the door override switch, and the entry door swooshed open. At the last possible second, she threw herself into the hallway, the elevator just missing her as it fell down the shaft. There was an explosive crash as it collided with the other lift. Smoke filled the hallway.

Yna looked back at the elevator shaft. It was now completely blocked. She stood there, scalpel ready, expecting a shapeshifting monster to burst from the rubble at any moment. Had the Marae been in the elevator above when it fell? Yna knew she had heard something moving around in it, but that could have just been the beginning of its fall, combined with her nervous imagination. And if the creature had been inside, was it dead now?

She would have to find another way to the next level. Remembering the map, Yna knew that there was another elevator at the other end of the ship. Alternatively, she could take the maintenance tunnels to a higher place in the elevator shaft. But she still didn’t like that idea. Nope, she would have to go the long way. The upside to this was that by taking the hallway she might find some supplies or an armory or something.

Yna proceeded down the hallway. It was very quiet. Yna’s heartbeat pounded loudly in her ears. She was about to turn a corner, but she stopped. There was a smell... it wasn’t a good smell. And... movement? No... the lights were flickering in that direction. Yna had seen a similar short in the lights on the lower level. Yna stood, her back to the wall, wondering if she should turn the corner. On the one hand, if the creature had been in the elevator, then it was behind her now. Or still on the upper level, where the second lift had originated. Either way, the Marae would not be in this hallway. 

On the other hand, the movement in the elevator might have been her imagination. And she really had no idea what she was dealing with. Yna pondered this, but not for too long. She couldn’t keep second-guessing herself. She could keep going back and forth between routes forever, but the only way out of this was to make a decision and proceed. Yna mustered all her energy and turned the corner.

There was a man on the floor. Or at least most of one. The corpse, bloated and mangled, lay in a large puddle of blood. Flesh had been gouged out from numerous locations. Much like the body in the medlab, this one had been cut open, and many of its organs were gone. And from his mouth protruded a strange bumpy cable. This thick gray cord extended from the man’s face, up the side of the wall, and into the air ducts. And it was moving. Pulsating. The dead man’s jaw opened and closed as the tentacle convulsed.

Shocked, Yna dropped the scalpel. The gray vine reacted instantly, withdrawing itself from the corpse’s mouth and facing Yna. The end of the tentacle sported a mouth of its own, filled with many needle-like teeth. Yna could only stare, wide-eyed and open-mouthed. The tentacle bubbled, and from the left side, one bump split open to reveal a bloodshot eyeball. One which centered on Yna. The rest of the creature’s gray mass began to pour from the air duct. As it hit the floor, it started to re-form itself.

Yna didn’t stick around to see what this form would be. She was off like a shot, running at top speed in the other direction. She picked a door at random and went inside, shutting and locking the door behind her. Yna looked around for some sort of weapon. She was in a laundry room. Nothing of use in here, unless this creature was allergic to chlorine bleach. Yna doubted it. She stood there for a minute, listening. She heard something moving in the hallway. A sort of half-step, half-slither. The sound passed by her without stopping. 

Yna, now feeling very helpless, went through the laundry until she found some actual clothing. She found a blue jumpsuit and hastily put it on. Then she looked around the room for other exits. The laundry chute. She was on the second level now; the chute would lead up to the crew deck. A definite improvement, it would get her both closer to the bridge and farther from the monster.

The laundry chute was a little tight, but Yna managed to squeeze into it. It was a difficult climb, as the chute was mostly vertical, but she made it. As she pulled herself out of the top of the chute, she thought she heard some noises from down in the laundry room. She listened carefully but heard nothing further. Hopefully, it was just her imagination. She closed the chute behind her and started down the hallway.

She wasn’t that far from the elevator shaft. Running as fast as she could, Yna reached the shaft, opened the doors, and climbed up the next level. But when she reached the hatchway to the bridge, the doors wouldn’t open. She tried hitting the override switch, but they wouldn’t budge. Severely disappointed, Yna climbed back down the shaft, arriving once again on the crew deck.

Yna explored a few rooms, looking for one with a working computer. The first room she entered was a crew quarters, with all the amenities, including another mangled corpse and a smashed computer. The next room she tried was more promising: no corpse, and a working computer. Yna sat down and searched the logs for information pertaining to the bridge. It turned out that the door wouldn’t open because the bridge wasn’t safe to enter. Apparently, there had been a hull breach, and the bridge was now completely without oxygen.

Yna thought through this for a while. She could try to find a pressure suit, and then attempt to enter the bridge from the outside... probably not a good idea. The computers up there probably didn’t even work anymore. Which meant, once again, that Yna was screwed. 

Yna poked around some more, looking for anything that might help her. The crewman who had once occupied this room kept an encrypted journal. Yna looked around the room for clues to the password. She took a couple of guesses, then got locked out. A pop-up prompted her to reset the password, and she clicked OK. She pulled up the crewman’s e-mail, which was already logged in, and had just received a “password reset” message. Within a few moments, Yna had access to the journals.

Dr. Morvik Personal Journal 13626: 

I hate working with fools. The other scientists don’t realize the military applications these creatures could have. They’re so short-sighted. They should realize that it’s not about research, it’s about profit. The government’s not going to fund their projects if they’re not pulling in money.

 The Grunthians make a tidy sum by selling their bodyguards and harem girls, but with my experimental Marae steroid, the Grunthians can build an army of powerful shapeshifting soldiers. And so what if they use their new army to conquer other planets? Even if they conquer Earth, I don’t care. I’ll be retired and living on Valos by then.

Dr. Morvik Personal Journal 13627: 

It’s done. The Marae is loose. It will be another week before I can leave, but I should be safe in this room. The door is reinforced, and the air vent isn’t connected to the main ventilation system. If the Marae does try to break in here, I have built a sonic transmitter that will calm him. One more week and my Grunthian transport will arrive, taking me to a new life of luxury.

Yna kept reading Morvik’s logs. Interesting. So it wasn’t radiation that had caused this Marae’s mutation after all. This Doctor Morvik had been planning to betray them all along. He was planning to escape on a Grunthian ship. Yna quickly pulled up the ship’s security cameras on the computer. And there it was, pulling into the landing bay. “The rendezvous ship!” Yna said aloud, and stood up. She turned, ready to head out the door...

...And found herself facing the business end of an energy pistol. The wielder was a short, balding man with a sneer on his face. “Doctor Morvik, I presume,” Yna said, putting her hands in the air.

“Who are you?” he asked nervously. “How much do you know?”

He must think I’m law enforcement, Yna thought. “Okay, you caught me,” Yna said. “I was just the first scout. The IGP is on its way. But if you’ll let me go, and help me get off this ship, I won’t tell them what I’ve found.”

Morvik considered this proposal. “You’re lying,” he finally decided. He raised his weapon, aiming it at Yna’s head.

Yna didn’t flinch. Her expression remained neutral. Calmly, she explained, “If you kill me, the IGP will definitely show up and arrest you. However, if you take me to a transmitter, I’ll call them and tell them not to come.”

Morvik shook his head. “You’re no cop. And even if you are, I’ll be long gone by the time they get here. And this vessel won’t be here either. It’s on a collision course for the asteroid field.” He held the gun up again, ready to pull the trigger. Suddenly there was a loud pounding at the door. Morvik instinctively turned his head. In that brief moment of distraction, Yna lunged at the scientist and grabbed for the gun. She gripped his wrist tightly, preventing him from aiming at her.

Morvik punched her in the face with his free hand, but he wasn’t very fit and Yna recovered quickly. She kneed him in the stomach, still holding tight to his gun hand. As she fought for control of the weapon, Yna’s fingers began to burn. 

Yna’s left hand, now clasped around Morvik’s gun and fingers, glowed a bright blue. There was a quick, intense blast of heat, and Morvik’s hand was melted to the gun. The scientist screamed in pain and cradled his misshapen hand. Yna jumped backward, considering her next course of action. She couldn’t waste any more time fighting this man. Yna put her back to the wall, next to the door. She pressed the button to leave. As the door slid open, the angry Marae burst into the room, headed right past Yna. Yna quickly jumped into the hallway and closed the door behind her. 

As she ran down the hall, she wondered if this was the last she would see of Morvik. If he managed to reach his sonic transmitter, he would survive. But if he was still preoccupied with his mangled hand, the creature would devour him before he could stop it. Either way, Yna had to get to the landing bay as soon as possible.

The landing bay was back on the lowest level, and it took several minutes of exploration to find it. Yna sneaked into the large landing area, staying in the shadows. The ship sat in the bay, and two armed Grunthians stood outside the doors, waiting. Yna would have to sneak aboard the ship and hide. Whether Morvik showed up or not, the Grunthians would have to leave before the research vessel hit the asteroid field. But sneaking aboard could be difficult.

Yna was an experienced pirate. Stowing away was her specialty. The ship’s door stood wide open, so all she really needed to do was distract the guards. But how to do that?

Then an echoing scream came from down the hall. Both Grunthians approached the noise, weapons raised. Yna swiftly sneaked behind them, and went through the door. Once inside, she found a storage locker large enough to fit in. It was pitch black, but she could still hear weapons fire and screaming.

Three sets of footsteps ran into the ship, and the door closed. There was a lot of shaking from outside the small craft. The ship lifted off and blasted away from the science vessel. Once things had calmed down, Yna listened carefully to the occupants of the ship.

“Whew, thanks. I thought I was dead back there,” said Morvik.

“Where is the formula for the Marae steroid?” said a Grunthian voice.

“In due time,” Morvik said.

“Now. Or you will die.”

“I don’t have it written down,” Morvik replied. “It’s all in my head. I will tell it only to your scientists, and only when we reach the Grunthian moon.”

The Grunthian growled in disappointment. It was clear that they had been planning to kill him once they received the steroid. Morvik must have had experience in dealing with such unsavory types. Yna wondered what Morvik’s plan was once he got to Grunthar. Well, it wasn’t her problem. All Yna had to do was hope she remained undiscovered, and then steal this ship once it was empty.

It was a promising plan, and it might have worked if Morvik hadn’t needed medical supplies for his hand. When the supply locker opened, Yna once again found herself face-to-face with the mad doctor. “You!” he shouted. Both Grunthians, weapons drawn, stood up and regarded the stowaway. Morvik ordered them to kill her, and they were more than willing to comply. They aimed their weapons...

And once more Yna was rescued by events beyond her control. The ship shook violently, knocking all the occupants from wall to wall. All eyes turned to the front of the ship, where they beheld a terrifying sight. The forward window, usually offering a panoramic view of the stars, was completely covered by a shapeless gray mass. One large pseudopod hammered relentlessly at the window, finally cracking it. 

Yna wondered, It can survive the vacuum of space? Then, Well, duh, that’s where they found it. The ship’s four passengers looked on in horror, unable to prevent what was about to happen. One final punch and the window shattered. Everything that wasn’t welded down got blown out the window. The Marae used one leathery tentacle to latch onto the pilot’s seat. As the ship’s occupants flew past it, the Marae grabbed Dr. Morvik with another appendage and bit his head off.

Yna’s survival instincts took over, and once again she found herself in her energy form, floating helplessly in space. One of the dead Grunthians floated past her, and Yna grabbed him. His flesh sizzled from her touch, but she held on tight and searched his outfit for anything she could use, like a communicator. Of course, there were all kinds of reasons she wouldn’t have been able to use a communicator even if she had found one, but she was in a hopeless situation and therefore grasping at straws.

It was pitch black in space, especially at this time of night. But Yna’s energy form gave off a blue glow which helped her search the Grunthian’s corpse. She found nothing but his sidearm, which wasn’t going to be of much use to her. Yna clung to the corpse, parts of which gradually burned away from her touch. The vacuum of space prevented the corpse from actually catching on fire. Instead, it just slowly melted in the spots she touched. 

For the seventh time this mission, Yna knew that this was the end. She wouldn’t be able to stay in her energy form for as long this time, she was still too weak. She simply had no options.

In the distance, Yna could just make out the lights of the decompressed Grunthian ship from which she had been expelled. There was no longer anyone at the helm, but apparently the autopilot mode was still working. It would continue on its original course until it was recovered by the Grunthians or someone else.

If the Marae was still in it, they might be able to extract the steroid from its system. Or even if not, they might be able to use the Marae itself to breed a more powerful type of warrior. Either way, it was giving the Grunthians more power than Yna wanted them to have. Yna considered. If she was going to die in space anyway, she might as well do something productive with her time.

Yna drew the dead Grunthian’s weapon. She aimed carefully, using the long-range scope, and fired several shots at the escaping ship. Her third shot hit its mark, piercing the ship’s engines and causing a bright but quickly extinguished explosion. If the Marae was still inside, it would be toast. That done, Yna released the weapon and corpse, allowing them to float free into eternity. She watched them coast casually away, the gun still bright white from where she had gripped it. It was soon just a pinprick of light in the distance, lost among the other tiny pinpricks of light. 

Yna realized that one of the pinpricks was moving closer. What the hell? Was the gun coming back? She squinted, but she couldn’t make out any details. All she could tell was that a light was moving towards her. Yna was anxious, not wanting to get her hopes up, but still bristling with curiosity. 

When it finally got near, Yna saw that it was a glowing ship of strange design. It was round, with no engine or jetstream or any of the features you would expect from a ship. Yna wasn’t even sure how she knew it was a ship, except that something in the back of her memory told her it was. It had no windows, but the entire vessel had a transparent quality to it. 

Inside the ship, she saw several people watching her. They were human-shaped, but featureless, with bright glowing skin. Yna felt an immediate kinship with them. The ship got closer, and she could feel herself being pulled toward it. Soon, all she could see was the bright light emanating from the ship. 

Light... and then darkness. 

Yna woke in a medical bay, covered with a thin turquoise blanket. A medical technician saw her stir and came over to check up on her.

“Where am I?”

“You’re safe. You’re on Outpost Station 4132. You had some burns when you arrived, but they’re almost gone. Is there someone you would like us to contact?”

“How... how did I get here?”

“We’ve been wondering that ourselves. You were dropped off, we think.”

“By who?”

“We don’t know,” the med tech said. “Our computers went glitchy, then alerted us that an airlock had been activated. You were inside, unconscious, nude, and covered in burns. What happened to you?”

Yna stared off into space. “I think... I think it was a family reunion.”

Far away, a large chunk of metal debris floated through space. It had once been the hull of a small Grunthian craft, but now it was just a tangle of twisted junk. Clinging to this useless scrap of machinery, however, was something decidedly nonmetallic. This “something” was gray, shapeless, grotesque... and moving.

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