Chapters (48)
- Cover
- Dedication
- ONE
- TWO
- THREE
- FOUR
- FIVE
- SIX
- SEVEN
- EIGHT
- NINE
- TEN
- ELEVEN
- TWELVE
- THIRTEEN
- FOURTEEN
- FIFTEEN
- SIXTEEN
- SEVENTEEN
- EIGHTEEN
- NINETEEN
- TWENTY
- TWENTY-ONE
- TWENTY-TWO
- TWENTY-THREE
- TWENTY-FOUR
- TWENTY-FIVE
- TWENTY-SIX
- TWENTY-SEVEN
- TWENTY-EIGHT
- TWENTY-NINE
- THIRTY
- THIRTY-ONE
- THIRTY-TWO
- THIRTY-THREE
- THIRTY-FOUR
- THIRTY-FIVE
- THIRTY-SIX
- THIRTY-SEVEN
- THIRTY-EIGHT
- THIRTY-NINE
- FORTY
- FORTY-ONE
- FORTY-TWO
- FORTY-THREE
- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
- ABOUT THE AUTHOR
- Copyright
I did not expect to find a slaughter.
The smell hit me first, copper and decay and something hard and astringent. At first, I didn’t even know what I was looking at. My eyes took in the sight, but my brain struggled to catch up, to process the pools of drying blood, the sightless stares of a dozen Omnistellar crew members draped around the room. Some lay where they’d fallen on the floor. Some slumped in chairs. Lots of them had run for the exit and had died where they fell.
I took a hesitant step forward, then another. I followed the fingers of an arm to its shoulder. It had been torn right off the body that owned it.
In the same instant my brain finally processed the reality of the situation. Bile surged in my throat and I spun, spewing vomit over the floor, further desecrating this killing ground. As I straightened and wiped my mouth on my sleeve, I found myself eye to eye with a woman. She’d died against the wall, propped against a console, her mouth stretched wide in a mask of terror. Her face was inches from my own. We stared at each other, and I realized I was waiting for her to blink first.
I staggered back, almost slipping in a puddle of blood but managing to catch myself against the wall as I fumbled for the door. My feet teetered on the edge of a massive, gaping hole. I threw myself aside, landing in something wet and crying out in spite of my resolve to stay silent. The hole was at least six feet wide with jagged, sharp edges. I couldn’t see below and didn’t want to. Instead, I struggled to my feet, slipping once more in blood, finding the wall and spinning. With Dad’s omnicard clenched hard enough to leave grooves in my hands, I slashed it past the card reader again and again, screwing up the reading so badly I had to stop, close my eyes to calm down, and give it one steady pass.
The door beeped and opened, and I ran into the hall. As it slid shut behind me, I drew great gasps of air, cleansing the stench of the command center from my lungs. My hands shook around the omnicard, and it clattered to the floor. I dropped beside it, still sucking in air until my lungs burned with the effort. One of my cousins had asthma, and I’d seen her gasping for breath before she was treated. This felt the same as she’d looked, like someone was closing a hand over my throat, leaving me less than a straw’s width to breathe through. I hunched my shoulder forward, gasping, choking.