“Show off,” Nicholas said in response.

  “Yes, sir,” she replied lightly.

  He turned away from the ship, drawing the prototype handgun Grimmel had left him. He squinted his eyes against the light filtering through the foliage, both watching and listening for signs of approaching trouble, ready to react if Jennifer or Dag sounded a warning.

  Less than a minute later, Yasmin passed the first rifle through. Briar took it and placed it on the ground beside the ship. More guns followed over the next few minutes, followed by ammunition and the first suit of combat armor.

  “Alpha, this is Bravo,” Caleb said. “We’ve reached Foresight Two. All clear so far. Over.”

  “Copy that, Bravo,” Nicholas said. “Let’s hope it stays that way. Alpha out.”

  The process continued, the surrounding area remaining quiet and calm.

  Nicholas shifted his attention to the far side of old Foresight Three when a flock of birds launched from one of the trees, cawing and screeching as they ascended out of the brush. Taking a few steps toward the commotion, he swiveled his gaze in search of shifting ground cover.

  “Jennifer, anything on the sensors?” he asked.

  “Negative, Captain,” she replied. “All clear.”

  He stared at the trees for a few more seconds before turning back to his original position. He didn’t know what had scared the birds, but there was clearly nothing there for him to worry about.

  “That’s the last of it,” Yasmin said, handing one final suit of combat armor out to Briar.

  “Now we’ve just got to run it all back to the LZ,” Briar said.

  “Hold on. I’m coming out.”

  Yasmin’s left foot appeared through the hole.

  “Captain, I’ve got something!” Jennifer shouted. “It’s right on top of you!”

  Nicholas’ heart immediately began pounding as he frantically whipped his head around, searching for a sign of movement anywhere. The brush remained calm. The area clear.

  Yasmin screamed.

  He turned his head back just in time to see her foot vanish back through the hole into Foresight Three.

  “Yasmin!” Nicholas shouted, running the short distance to the hatch. Whatever had appeared on Foresight’s sensors, it was already inside the ship. “Dag, what’s going on?”

  An echoing thump sounded at the back of the ship.

  “Nick, help!” Yasmin managed to bleat out, her voice breathless and heavy.

  “Briar, wait here,” Nicholas barked, just before diving head-first through the jagged opening in the hatch. He hit the deck on his shoulder and rolled into an off-balance crouch, almost falling forward before regaining his balance and thrusting his gun toward the back of the hold. The space remained dark, the only light filtering in through the hole. No sign of Dag or Yasmin, but there wasn’t really anywhere that whatever had taken her could hide.

  But it had hidden earlier, managing to stay out of sight during the Swarm’s exploration. Or maybe it had returned to the ship after it had spotted them? It didn’t really matter now. It had Yasmin. He didn’t know what it might do to her, but he had seen what it had done to the original crew.

  Where was Dag? Had he already gone after the threat?

  Sprinting to the ladder, he saw the hatch above had been completely removed, allowing enough space to pull Yasmin up to the next deck. He couldn’t climb with the gun in his hands, so he quickly holstered it and grabbed the rungs, quickly scaling them.

  “Captain, I’ve got something on sensors, but I can’t get a visual on it,” Jennifer said.

  “It’s inside Foresight Three. It has Yasmin!”

  “Oh, no,” she whispered.

  Nicholas reached the main deck, struggling to see in the darkness. A sliver of light rose through the hatch around him, giving him just enough to see the bodies around the ladder had all been moved, the decayed corpses piled against the wall to clear the area.

  Only able to see a foot in front of his face at most, he drew his gun while remaining still and listening. The ship had gone silent. The comms had gone silent. Where was Yasmin?

  His heart lurched at the thought of losing her. He had to force himself to put that thought, and the fear that went with it, out of his head and think rationally. He would find her, and if she wasn’t still alive, whatever had grabbed her would pay.

  He advanced through the ship, using his knowledge of Foresight’s layout to navigate despite the fact he could barely see. It was probably stupid for him to charge headlong into the pitch black, but he didn’t care. Yasmin was all that mattered.

  Hurrying forward to the flight deck, Nicholas tripped over something on the floor, stumbling forward and catching himself with a hand to the bulkhead, his gun at the ready. He couldn’t see what he’d tripped on and didn’t take the time to feel around for it. Stiff and hard, whatever it was, it wasn’t Yasmin’s body. And that was all he cared about. He continued forward, entering the flight deck and finding it empty.

  The upper deck. Crew quarters. He couldn’t believe whatever had taken Yasmin had gotten up there so fast. Reversing course, he made sure not to trip over the object on the deck a second time, pushing it out of the way with his foot. Only then did he realize the item was his duplicate’s dessicated corpse. Someone or something had moved it from the command seat. Probably put it in his way on purpose, to slow him down.

  Angry, nervous, and disgusted, Nicholas started for the ladder, a musky scent alerting him to the presence of something else in the compartment.

  Too late.

  A powerful hand wrapped around his throat and lifted him easily off the deck, a pair of yellow eyes fading into view in front of his face.

  He still couldn’t get a good look at whatever it was, but one thing was immediately clear. It was much too big to have squeezed through the hole in the hatch.

  So where the hell had it come...?

  Before Nicholas could finish the thought, the alien’s other hand touched the side of his head and everything went dark.

  Chapter 17

  Nicholas didn’t think he’d been out for long. To him, it seemed as if the world had faded out and back in again within a single breath. Opening his eyes, he quickly realized he was inside the engineering section of Foresight Three. His arms were stretched up over his head, pinned to one of the pipes that lined the bulkhead by a C-shaped pair of dark metal cuffs, the open ends magnetically locked to the pipe. When he tried to pull his wrists free of the cuffs and then the cuffs free of the pipe, there was no give at all. Even when he pulled on the cuffs with all his strength, they didn’t give at all.

  An emergency light above the central terminal provided the compartment’s only illumination. Looking around, his eyes lit on Yasmin.

  “Yazz,” he said, overjoyed to see her in one piece. She stood across from him, awake and alert, her wrists stuck to a pipe so high over her head she had to almost stand on her tiptoes. “Are you okay?”

  She nodded but didn’t speak, motioning to her left with her head.

  Nicholas turned his attention in that direction, stiffening when he saw the thing crouched on the other side of the terminal. It had to be what had taken him and Yasmin prisoner. Humanoid in shape, it appeared to be of a similar height to Nicholas, and contrary to what he’d originally thought, it was easily slender enough to fit through the hole in the hatch.

  But he didn’t know if he was looking at naked flesh, clothing, or what. It was coal black with an almost scaly quality. Yet, it looked supple, almost rubbery, reminiscent of Foresight’s outer covering. Its arms and legs appeared to be slightly longer than normal for a human. Its neck and head were oversized just enough to appear strange. He couldn’t see its face clearly, but from the angle it didn’t appear to have ears, a nose, or a mouth.

  Was this one of the species that had lived in the city?

  The individual didn’t seem interested in either him or Yasmin. Instead, it was manipulating something on the floor. Nicholas craned his neck and shifted, pulling as hard against his restraints as he could to see the object of its attention.

  “Hey!” he snapped, the moment he realized it had Dag laid out across the deck. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  The individual didn’t react at all, as if it couldn’t hear him.

  “Hey, I’m talking to you, asshole,” Nicholas said, louder this time.

  “Nick,” Yasmin whispered. “What are you doing?”

  “It has Dag. It’s tearing him apart.”

  “Are you crazy? That thing can kill us any time it wants.”

  “If it planned to kill us, it would have done it already,” Nicholas argued. “Hey!”

  The individual still didn’t respond.

  “Jennifer, do you copy?” Nicholas asked.

  “Forget it, Nick,” Yasmin said. “It took our comms.”

  “So it knows what comms are.”

  “I think it knows a lot more than that.”

  Nicholas leaned harder away from his restraints, trying to gain a few more inches so he could see what it was doing to Dag. The humanoid had removed the small bot’s chest plate, revealing his internals. A crystal similar to the one inside the Swarm microbot rested in the center, providing the bot’s power.

  The humanoid reached in with long, narrow fingers and plucked it out.

  “No!” Nicholas shouted. “You son of a bitch!”

  The individual stood, holding the crystal between thumb and forefinger. Nicholas watched as its skin extended from the digits. When the skin receded, the crystal was gone. Absorbed.

  The individual finally turned around, giving Nicholas a clear look at its front. It did have a face, sort of, with a small bulge for a nose and indents where its eyes should be. But the physical attributes were either hidden beneath the scaly layer or didn’t really exist at all.

  “What the hell are you?” Nicholas said, struggling against the cuffs around his wrists as the thing approached him.

  “What the hell are you?” it repeated, its voice a perfect match to his. “What the hell are you? It has Dag. It’s tearing him apart.”

  Nicholas stared at it. Had it recorded everything he said?

  He flinched again when the scales covering its body shifted, light projecting from some of them, reflecting off others, and others bending until a perfect replica of himself stood where the strange humanoid had been a moment before.

  “What the hell are you?” it said again, its new lips perfectly synchronized with the words. “It’s tearing him apart.” It smiled. “So it knows what comms are.” Walking past Nicholas, it picked up his small earpiece from behind the terminal and held it toward him. “Yes, it does.”

  Nicholas’ eyes widened. The individual spoke in his exact voice, but it was no recording. He hadn’t said those words. “What do you want?”

  “I require the source of the broadcast,” it said in his voice. “And your ship.”

  “You can’t have my ship.”

  It made a synthesized sound that Nicholas took for laughter before speaking again. “I require it. I must locate the source of the broadcast. I must make my report.”

  “Report?” Nicholas asked.

  It didn’t answer him, instead circling the central terminal and approaching Yasmin.

  “Leave her alone!” Nicholas growled, again struggling against his restraints.

  “Come on,” the thing said to her. “We’re getting out of here.” It reached up and removed the restraints from Yasmin’s wrists with nothing more than a touch. She fell into the humanoid’s welcoming arms, relief written across her face. Strangely, she didn’t sink into the projected hologram, but rather rested against it as if it were real.

  Impossible!

  “Yazz?” Nicholas frowned, “What are you doing?”

  She looked at him as she pulled herself away from the imposter, looking at Nicholas as if he disgusted her before gazing back up at the imposter. “Why didn’t you kill it?” she asked.

  The humanoid turned its head toward Nicholas and laughed again. “It can’t hurt us,” it said. “We have what we came for. Let’s get back to Foresight.”

  “I’m sorry about Dag,” Yasmin said. “I know you cared about it, even if it was just a machine.”

  “An easy sacrifice to make to save you,” the imposter replied.

  It led Yasmin out of the compartment. The door closed behind them, leaving Nicholas trapped, confused and alone.

  Chapter 18

  “Yazz!” Nicholas shouted after them. “Yasmin! Wait! It’s a trick!”

  But she couldn’t hear him through the blast door. Nobody could. And whatever the thing that had left with her was, it had made itself indistinguishable from him, at least on a surface level. And nobody on board knew him better on any level than his wife.

  Nobody else on board would be able to tell that thing wasn’t him. And now she couldn’t either.

  He didn’t understand it. She had acted as though she didn’t see the humanoid change from the black-skinned thing into him. Like she didn’t see the holographic projection overlay it, creating the illusion. She had acted as if he was the one who had grabbed her, and that the humanoid, as him, had saved them, with Dag giving himself up to the enemy to make it happen.

  Clearly, it had twisted her reality somehow. More than that, it had convinced her of that twisted reality with hardly any effort. How could that be possible?

  How could any of this be possible?

  The humanoid and his wife would be heading back to Foresight with Briar and the military equipment right now. Once Caleb and the others returned from Foresight Two, they would head out to the source of the broadcast with an unpredictable snake in their midst. Nicholas didn’t know what the thing wanted with the broadcast, but he couldn’t come up with a scenario where it was good for him and his crew.

  He needed to get free and stop it. But how?

  “Don’t panic. Think,” he said out loud to himself, settling to stillness. First things first. He needed to break free of the restraints. He couldn’t do it with brute strength. There had to be another way.

  Turning his head, he examined the pipe he was cuffed to and realized he might have lucked out, assuming he could get the pipe’s fittings loose. About six inches in diameter, the area of pipe he was cuffed to had obviously been a pieced-in repair that curved back behind the bulkhead at both ends to where the thrusters were located. It had probably carried cooling liquid through the thrusters, though in all honesty he had no idea if that was true. It didn’t matter. What did matter was that the piece of pipe was only about a yard long and the fittings at each end where it was pieced in showed clear signs of rust.

  That meant it had weakened over time. But had it weakened enough?

  Nicholas shifted his position, getting his shoulders as far under the pipe as he could. Other bundles of cables and tubing pressed against his back as he lowered himself as much as the restraints would allow.

  He wasn’t as muscular as Caleb, but he wasn’t a wimp either. He thrust his right shoulder up into the pipe with all his strength. It didn’t budge even a fraction, while his rotator cuff felt like he hadn’t done it any favors. Gritting his teeth, he lifted his entire body off the deck and dropped, waves of pain rocketing through his wrists as his entire one hundred ninety pounds pulled the cuffs tight.

  No give with that either.

  Pulling his legs back under him, he ignored the pain in his wrists and shoulder and again drove the same shoulder into the pipe, this time adding thrust from his legs.

  The second impact with the pipe hurt more than the first, and the pipe still hadn’t budged. He looked over at the connection. Some of the rust had flaked off on the deck, proving the metal had at least shifted a minute fraction, proving his plan might work. He slammed his shoulder into the metal again and then dangled all his weight from the cuffs, yanking hard on the pipe at the same time. If it didn’t break loose soon his wrists or shoulder would probably dislocate. Perhaps if his thumbs dislocated, he might be able to pull them through the cuffs.

  He went through each move a fourth time. Then a fifth. On the sixth, the pipe shifted as he hit it with his shoulder and shifted even more when he hung from it.

  On the seventh try, both ends of the pipe snapped off nearly at the same time. He grunted as his weight slammed to the floor, the heavy pipe falling on his chest. With the thrusters inactive for so long, the pipe turned out to be empty, but the smell of the coolant that had dried inside still burned his nose.

  It took some effort for Nicholas to get back to his feet. He had freed himself from the bulkhead, but the pipe remained stuck to his wrists, making it challenging to move. Still, it beat not being able to move at all.

  He staggered to the hatch under the weight of the pipe, struggling to lift it to tap on the control panel. Dead. The imposter had closed it manually, showing its considerable strength.

  “Damn it!” Nicholas shouted, kicking the door, pain shooting through his shoulders and wrists as he had to let the weight of the pipe drop to arm’s length. He backed up a step, closing his eyes again and taking a moment to calm down. Panicking again. It wouldn’t help. “Think, Shepherd.”

  Turning to survey the compartment, his eyes settled on Dag, laying on the deck just past the central terminal, His chestplate was off, sitting on the floor beside him. The little bot was offline, but what if he could figure out how to either extend one of the blades or remove it completely from its housing? He could probably cut through the pipe and give himself a little more mobility.

  He walked over and crouched down beside the bot. The minutes passed as he examined his arm and then his insides, searching for a mechanism to release the blades. Finding none, he fell back onto his rear, leaning against the central terminal. No doubt the imposter Nicholas was still close by, helping to ferry ordnance to Foresight. The process wouldn’t take more than an hour. He was running out of time.

  He stared at Dag. If only he could bring the bot back online. But he needed power to do that, and there wasn’t any left on the ship.