Nalina
NALINA
T he wet ladder rungs bit into my palms. I led Tyrix through Nova’s Edge’s innards, taking us deeper into the abandoned storage bays. My old boots scrabbled against slick metal. Strange - I used to be more sure-footed in these tunnels. Lately my balance felt off, like my body was recalibrating itself.
“Watch that pipe,” I called back. A broken coolant line hung at head height - for me, at least. Tyrix would have to duck. “Two more turns.”
My hideaway lay hidden behind a defunct cargo loader, untouched since I’d found it three years ago during a station-wide security sweep.
Most abandoned bays had been sealed off, but this one still had power - and more importantly, didn’t show up on any current station schematics. The massive door groaned as I keyed in my code, metal screaming against metal.
“Charming place,” Tyrix muttered.
“Better than getting caught by patrols.” I slipped inside, fumbling for the emergency light panel. Blue-white illumination flickered to life, casting harsh shadows across stacked crates and forgotten equipment.
“I keep supplies here. Clean clothes, med kit...”
I turned to find Tyrix stripping off his rust-stained shirt. The motion pulled at the muscles of his back, purple markings stark against gray skin. Old scars crossed his shoulders, silvered with age. Heat rushed to my face. I spun away, pretending to dig through my supplies.
“Here.” I tossed him a maintenance vest I’d salvaged - the kind made to fit multiple species. “Not much, but it’s clean.”
“Thank you.” Fabric rustled as he changed. My neck burned where his gaze rested. “You have rust. On your neck.”
His fingers brushed my skin before I could pull away. I froze at the gentle scrape of his claws. They sent shivers up my spine and through my whole body.
I tried to clear my head. I couldn’t be falling this hard for a Vinduthi. Not now. Not yet. Not ever.
“Hold still,” he murmured. The pad of his thumb swept across my pulse point, wiping away grime. Every nerve ending sparked at his touch.
But the gentle pressure reminded me of another touch - a shaking hand on my arm as one of my regulars steadied herself at the bar last week, her face drawn and sallow under the harsh lights...
Liseth had complained about power fluctuations in her sector, said the constant changes made her dizzy. I’d written it off as station fever, given her a drink on the house...
“?”
I pulled away from Tyrix’s touch. “Sorry. Just remembered something. A regular at the bar. She worked maintenance in Blue Section. Started looking sick a few weeks ago. Same signs as Jevik - shaking hands, skin going pale. Haven’t seen her in days...”
“Sick, like Jevik?”
“Maybe. She talked about weird power spikes in her sector. Said it gave her headaches.” I paced between the crates. “And the medical supply shortages. Suppliers bitching about redirected shipments...”
“The synthetic proteins Dasari mentioned.”
“Yeah.” My skin crawled. “What are they doing to people?”
Voices echoed in the corridor outside. We both froze.
I crept to the door, peering through a gap in the metal. The distinctive hexagonal insignias on their collars made my stomach clench - the same shimmering blue-silver design I’d seen on those false medics in my bar, on the men who had attacked us.
Now I knew what they were: Consortium agents. The sight of those badges brought back memories of how smoothly they’d moved through my bar, how precisely they’d scanned the crowd. Not like regular security at all.
Grot stood with them, his four arms hanging oddly still. His usually ruddy skin had a gray cast, tentacles at the sides of his mouth twitching. He pointed back toward Green Section, moving like a glitchy hologram.
“...spotted them heading that way,” he said. His voice sounded wrong - flat, empty. “The bartender knows these tunnels. She’ll try to lose you in maintenance.”
My stomach turned. I’d served him drinks yesterday, listened to his drunken stories. Had he been watching me even then?
“Good work.” One agent touched something at Grot’s neck. He went rigid, then relaxed. “Return to your post.”
I stumbled back from the door. Tyrix caught my shoulders.
“We can’t go to hydroponics,” I whispered. “Not directly. They’re watching everyone.”
“Then we find another way.” His hands slid down my arms. “When do maintenance crews change shift?”
“Twenty minutes.” I forced myself to think past the nausea. “Most systems run on minimal staff then. And the patrols change routes. If we loop through the cargo sections first, double back through maintenance...” I sketched a rough map on an old cargo manifest. “It’ll take longer, but they won’t expect us to circle around like that.”
“You’re shaking.”
“I’m fine.” But my hands trembled as I traced the route. Grot’s empty eyes haunted me. How many others had they turned into puppets?
Tyrix’s fingers closed over mine. “We’ll find out what they’re doing.”
“And stop them?”
“Yes.” Such certainty in that single word. I wanted to believe him.
We waited in tense silence, counting minutes. I could hear the subtle differences in their footsteps - three sets of boots, one limping slightly.
Odd.
At fifteen, the overhead lights dimmed briefly - the signal for shift change. Time to move.
“This way.” I led him through a maze of access tunnels, timing our movements between patrol patterns. The station’s constant hum covered our footsteps.
We reached one of Dasari’s marked access points - an old hydroponic bay converted to storage. The lock yielded to my override codes.
My fingers brushed against my skin where the cut still stung, but my mind was racing with everything we’d discovered. Those hexagonal insignias we’d seen on the agents kept appearing in more places - on collars in the corridors, glimpsed during patrols. The Consortium wasn’t even trying to hide anymore, which meant whatever they were planning must be close to completion.
Inside, the air felt wrong.
Too damp. Vegetation rotted in abandoned growing trays. But someone had been living here - a makeshift bed tucked behind broken equipment, food wrappers scattered nearby.
“Look.” Tyrix held up a handful of shed scales. Poraki. Near the bed, a water container had been modified to accommodate gills.
A data pad lay half-hidden under the bedding. Most files were corrupted, but fragments remained readable:
“...accelerated evolution protocols showing promise in Research Bay 23-A... test subjects developing unexpected improvements... enhanced adaptation rate exceeds projections... transfer approved subjects to Blue Section facility for full implementation...”
The tablet’s corrupted memory yielded more fragments: “Neural plasticity screening protocols updated. Recommend immediate transfer of subjects showing 70% or higher adaptability scores.”
Tyrix’s sharp intake of breath drew my attention. He was studying the last few entries intently, his markings darkening with tension.
“Look at this notation style,” he said, voice low. “These margin notes - the precise formatting, the specific terminology. This is Dr. Gondon’s work. I’ve seen enough of her research papers to recognize it.” He pointed to a partially corrupted entry. “See how she questions the use of the learning center? ‘Original protocols specified voluntary adult subjects only.’”
The next entry was barely readable, but Tyrix managed to make out “Blue Section facility” and “enhanced monitoring systems” before the text degraded completely.
The final entry cut off mid-sentence.
“Well. That’s not encouraging.”
The hydroponic bay stretched deeper into the station’s skeleton, abandoned growing racks casting strange shadows. Tyrix moved ahead of me, his bare shoulders tense under the borrowed vest. Even in the dim light, I could trace the patterns of his markings disappearing beneath the fabric.
Focus. This wasn’t the time to get distracted.
“There’s another growing section through here,” I whispered, pointing to a partially sealed doorway. “If someone’s been living in the area...”
He nodded, helping me squeeze through the gap. His hands lingered at my waist a moment too long. The touch sent electricity down my spine.
The air grew thicker as we pressed deeper into the abandoned section. Moisture dripped from corroded pipes, collecting in pools that reflected our movements. Something about the quality of the darkness felt wrong. Watched.
“Look.” Tyrix’s voice was barely a breath. He pointed to a series of scratches on the wall - deliberate marks, not random damage. They formed a pattern that looked almost mathematical in their precision and regularity.
“Some kind of code?”
“Or a warning.” He traced one of the marks with a claw. “No way of knowing.”
A distant clang echoed through the bay. We both froze.
Tyrix pulled me into a recessed doorway, his body curving around mine. The space was tight enough that I could feel his heartbeat, slower than human-normal but picking up speed. His breath stirred my hair.
Footsteps approached - the measured tread of a patrol? No... something else. The rhythm was wrong, uneven. Like Grot’s unnatural movements.
I pressed back against Tyrix’s chest, holding my breath. His arms tightened around me, protective. Possessive.
The steps grew closer. A shadow passed our hiding spot, illuminated briefly by patches of bioluminescence that pulsed with a sickly rhythm.
We waited until the footsteps faded before moving. But as I started to pull away, Tyrix’s grip on my hip tightened.
“Wait.” His voice was rough. “There’s something...”
A muffled cry echoed from deeper in the section, followed by the sound of equipment crashing.
Our eyes met in the darkness. Whatever was happening here, we were running out of time.
“This way,” I breathed, reluctantly stepping from his embrace. The loss of his warmth left me shivering.
We moved deeper into the hydroponics section, following the sound. The growing racks here had been cleared away, replaced by something that looked disturbingly like medical equipment.
And there, crumpled beneath a broken pipe, I recognized her - Xara, a Fanaith engineer who sometimes stopped by the bar after late shifts. Her usually glossy, translucent skin had gone dull, and strange purple bioluminescent patches pulsed erratically across it - nothing like the natural blue-silver shimmer of her species.
Her large black eyes fluttered open as I knelt beside her. “...changing us...” she gasped. “The next phase...”
She convulsed once, the strange purple light flaring beneath her skin before going dark. When I checked her pulse, there was nothing.
Tyrix touched my shoulder. “We can’t stay here.”
“We can’t leave her.” My voice broke. “She has family. They deserve to know...” I couldn’t stop staring at those patches - their color so wrong against her Fanaith skin.
“If we alert medical, the Consortium will know we were here.”
“Then we find a different way.” I met his gaze. “Please.”
He studied me for a moment. “We could arrange an... accident. Draw attention here without involving ourselves directly.”
“The environmental systems are already unstable in this section,” I said, mind racing. “I can trigger a cascade warning - make it look like the power fluctuations finally overloaded something. They’ll have to send a full crew to check it.”
“Do it.” He lifted Xara gently. “I’ll make sure she’s found.”
I knew the cost of compassion out here. Knew the risk we took. But I couldn’t walk away. Not from this.
The environmental control panel yielded to my override codes. A few careful adjustments to the temperature regulators, a crossed wire here, a surge there...
I reached deeper into the access panel, trying to bridge the final connection. Sharp metal bit into my side as I stretched, but I ignored the sting. Getting Xara found was more important than a scratch.
Within minutes, the system’s warning lights began to flash.
The alarm klaxon wailed to life as I finished.
I met Tyrix two sections over.
“It’s done?”
“Yes.” His hand reached for mine in the dark. “Now we follow the evidence. Find out what the ‘next phase’ means.”
“And Jevik?”
“Still out there. Still holds answers.” He squeezed my fingers. “But we need to be smart. Careful.”
I leaned into his warmth for a moment. “When are we anything else?”
His low chuckle rumbled through me. But his grip tightened, protective. Possessive.
We had a lead now - the data pad’s mention of “accelerated evolution,” the strange markings on the wall, Xara’s dying words about “the next phase.” Something systematic was happening on this station.
But also confirmation that the Consortium’s reach went deeper than we’d guessed. They weren’t just watching - they were changing people. Using them.
I should have been terrified. Should have run as far as I could. Instead, I found myself pressing closer to Tyrix’s side, drawing strength from his presence.
“Ready?” Tyrix’s eyes gleamed in the dark.
I squeezed his hand. “Lead the way.”