Snowblind (The Shadow Wars Book 7) Read online

  Dark Nexus Fiction

  Presents

  SNOWBLIND

  –a novel of sci-fi action–

  Book #7 in

  The Shadow Wars

  written by

  –S. A. Lusher–

  cover by

  –M. Knepper–

  editing by

  –Sarah Lusher–

  Dedicate to Natalie Kent,

  for being the nicest person ever and

  a great friend.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 01

  Chapter 02

  Chapter 03

  Chapter 04

  Chapter 05

  Chapter 06

  Chapter 07

  Chapter 08

  Chapter 09

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Epilogue

  Quarantine Sneak Peek

  About the Author

  Chapter 01

  –Right Back At It–

  The ship.

  He was back in the ship. Or had he ever left it? He stumbled through crimson-lit corridors that snaked endlessly away from him. His eyes seemed to be playing tricks on him. Was it the light that was red? Or was there just so much blood that everything was red? Something squished beneath his bare foot and he looked down, terror stealing into his soul. He was stepping on a severed, rotted hand. Blood and pus leaked out of the decayed thing and he cried out, recoiling backwards. The floor was too slick, and his feet shot out from under him.

  Crashing to the ground, he yelled in pain. Naked, he was naked. Everything hurt. He tried to remember why he was here...where here was. But his memories seemed to always skitter away from him, lost like tears in the rain.

  A hand clapped down on his shoulder then. Hard as steel, cold as space.

  It was behind him.

  Behind him.

  Slowly, he began to turn, terrified of what he might see. Even more terrified of letting the unknown linger for any longer.

  He turned, shivering from unabashed terror, and looked up into the face of madness.

  He began to scream...

  Greg Bishop gasped awake, sitting bolt upright in the dim confines of wherever we was. For a cold-gut second, he knew nothing. He had no idea of where he was or why he was there. Nothing entered his head and for what felt like far too long he sat frozen, trembling with raw-edged fear. Then a thought came to him. It was simple: Not again. That singular thought exploded like a beacon in the night and it all slipped comfortably back into place. Waking up in that ship, Dis, Dark Ops, the Undead, the Augmented...

  Escape.

  Greg let out a breath he hadn't even realized he'd been holding. It came out in a long, soft hiss and he looked around. He was in a cargo ship, floating out in the middle of nowhere, and he'd laid down to have a nap with...Greg glanced over and down. Kyra was still deep asleep. She was curled up on her side, facing him, her face relaxed and beautiful in slumber. She seemed at peace, which was a real blessing, considering all they'd been through over the past few weeks. Greg let out another, softer sigh, and rubbed at his eyes.

  He looked around once more. The only real place to sleep had been the captain's quarters. There was another room meant for the crew, but it was more like a barracks than anything else. The captain's quarters were small but at least serviceable. After making sure they were actually safe, Greg and Kyra had found the bed, stripped down and made love until they were too exhausted to keep going. And now Greg was waking from that.

  He had no idea how much time had passed. Kyra shifted. He glanced back down at her, then reached out and tucked a bit of stray brunette hair behind her ear. Her eyes snapped open at the contact and her entire body tensed, but she relaxed after a few seconds. She looked up at him and smiled. He smiled back.

  “Is everything okay?” she asked, slowly sitting up and stretching. The blankets fell from her, revealing her pale torso.

  “Yeah, fine, as far as I know. But we should probably actually get up and figure out how we're getting out of this situation,” Greg replied.

  Kyra seemed to consider it for a moment, rubbing sleep from her eyes. Finally, she nodded. “Yeah, all right. Let's go take a shower.”

  They both stood up, leaving the warm nest they'd made in the king size bed. Greg stretched, popping his joints, feeling his varied muscles protest. He'd be sore for weeks to come. Following Kyra into the bathroom attached to the captain's quarters, he knelt and opened up the cabinet beneath the sink. Fishing out the medical kit buried beneath it, he set it on the counter around the sink and followed Kyra into the shower.

  * * * * *

  They'd been asleep for fourteen hours, as best as Greg had been able to figure. After the shower, (which took longer than it probably needed to, not that he was complaining), the pair of them spent a little while investigating each other and patching up any wounds, scrapes, burns, cuts or anything else they'd picked up during their adventures. After that they dressed in the gray jumpsuits that seemed to have been standard uniform for the ship and raided the mess hall.

  Greg was ravenous, hungrier than he ever remembered being. Not that that was too impressive, given the fact that his memories extended back less than a month. The food was a bit bland, most of it in freeze-dried packages that were sold in bulk, but neither Greg nor Kyra cared. They heated up and tore through three of the packages each, hardly pausing to look at what it was they were eating. Greg drained four cans of Vex, Kyra three. When they were finished, they abandoned the debris of their meals and began to move back towards the bridge.

  “So now what?” Greg asked as they settled into their respective seats.

  Kyra spent a moment working the console she was at, then she sat back. “I'm not entirely sure there's much we can do beyond sending out a distress beacon and waiting. We don't have long-range comms. I might be able to figure out how to repair the FTL drive but...that's a bit of a long shot. We might be fucked.”

  “Fantastic, after all the shit we went through, we'll either starve or suffocate,” Greg muttered.

  “We'd probably die of thirst before we'd starve. I'm sending out the beacon now. Hopefully someone will pick up on it...someone other than Dark Ops.”

  Greg sat up. “Speaking of that...we'd probably better prepare for that contingency.”

  “Preparing being...what, exactly?”

  “For now? Search the ship for anything useful, I guess. We brought our pistols onboard...I think. Shit, we should at least inventory our supplies. Figure out how long we can drift out here and which resource has the shortest fuse.”

  “Just like old times,” Kyra muttered, standing.

  “Yeah,” Greg replied.

  They headed out of the bridge.

  * * * * *

  An hour passed, then two.

  They searched the ship, inventorying their supplies and preparing for what Greg felt was inevitable. He found his hopes sinking by the minute as time dragged on. He managed to locate both their pistols and not much else, beyond a few scant magazines of ammo. Apparently they'd lost or used up everything else during that final conflict on the abandoned space station. All he could find in the way of other weaponry was a loaded pistol and a single spare magazine tucked away in the captain's quarters.

  There was nothing else.

  As for their resource supply, Kyra discerned that they'd be dead in two weeks. That was when the ship would lose power, even with everything else running on minimal and turning off all the non-essential system
s.

  After receiving that particularly joyous piece of news, Greg drifted towards the bridge, feeling listless. Kyra was taking a look at the FTL drive, but she didn't seem very hopeful either. As he went to the bridge, he thought about all the others who had died along the way. Billings. Campbell. Kauffman. Had their sacrifices all been in vain? An entire system had been killed, millions dead...and there'd be nothing to show for it?

  It didn't seem fair.

  Greg collapsed into the pilot's seat and stared off into space for a long moment. The stars seemed to mock him. To survive all this...something chimed suddenly in the bridge. Greg sat up, wondering what could have gone wrong now. After a moment, he felt hope spike in his heart. Another ship had just appeared from hyperspace. He keyed the close-range communications system, said a small prayer and brought the radio to his mouth.

  “Hello? Can you help us?” He paused for a moment, figuring there was probably a better way he could have worded that.

  The radio crackled. “Yes...well, maybe. We've just come from a bit of a bad situation. Who are you? What are you doing out here?” a female voice responded, sounding tentative and tired.

  Greg let out a small laugh, considering how to respond. Then, finally, he reactivated the radio. “My name is Greg Bishop...and it's a long story.” He paused for a moment. “What about you?”

  Another pause. “My name is Eve Brooks. And I'm afraid I've also got a long story.”

  “How about we link ships and talk in person?”

  “Okay. I'll link up our airlocks.”

  Greg responded positively and then keyed the ship wide intercom. “Kyra! We've finally hit a bit of good luck. Get up to the bridge, someone's coming to rescue us...I think.”

  “Oh, thank God. On my way.”

  Greg began running scans on the vessel as it approached. After a moment, he had all the data he was going to get out of it. Two relevant things were revealed. The first was that there were only two people onboard, the second was that they had a working FTL drive. So maybe they'd get out of this after all. Provided that whoever they had just met didn't try to kill them. Just as Kyra stepped onto the bridge, there was a loud clang that reverberated through the hull of the ship. Greg stood up and together he and Kyra moved towards the main airlock.

  “So who are they?” Kyra asked.

  “Not sure. There's just two of them, though. And they sounded nice enough.”

  “Fantastic.”

  They arrived at the airlock, both of them with their pistols holstered, but not clasped. After everything that had happened so far, Greg wasn't willing to take too many chances. After a long moment, the airlock beeped. Greg reached out and hit the access button, allowing the inner door to open up. Two people stood within the airlock. The first was a man wearing a ripped, bloodied black uniform that immediately set Greg on edge. He'd seen that uniform before. The woman, who looked to be in an equally battered state, wore the same uniform. She held a pistol and the man, who, after a moment, Greg realized had a fake arm, held a rifle.

  As one, both Greg and Kyra snapped their pistols up and covered the two new arrivals, who did the exact same thing.

  “Who do you work for?” Greg asked.

  “Presently? I'm unemployed,” the man replied.

  “Don't give us that shit, those are Dark Ops uniforms,” Greg said.

  The woman lowered her pistol. “How the fuck do you know about Dark Ops?”

  “We just spent three weeks dealing with the assholes,” Kyra replied.

  “We're not Dark Ops, I promise. We're actually on the run from them,” the woman, Eve, said.

  “Why are you wearing those?” Greg asked.

  “I infiltrated Dark Ops and he had nothing else to wear,” Eve explained.

  A long moment of tension passed, then Greg lowered his pistol. Kyra did the same. Then Eve lowered her gun. The man with the artificial arm kept his rifle raised. After a second, the woman sighed heavily, put her hand on the barrel and forced it down. “Get over yourself, Enzo,” she muttered, then returned her attention to Greg and Kyra.

  “I imagine we have a lot to say to each other.”

  * * * * *

  Enzo had to admit, he was impressed. And that was hard to do. These pair of survivors, both of them Security-Investigations for fuck's sake, had managed to survive a lot more than he'd had to put up with over the past day.

  “So, what do we do?” Greg asked.

  Enzo glanced over. He was in the process of giving himself another dose of morphine. He'd taken a spare medkit from off the bridge wall and had pulled out the liquid painkiller. They were looking at him now. He held up the needle, flicked it a few times, depressed the plunger half an inch, then jabbed the needle into his shoulder and injected half the morphine.

  “Much better,” he whispered, replacing the syringe. “It seems the best thing to do would be to get on our ship and get the fuck out of here.”

  “Fine by me,” Greg replied, standing.

  As he did, something beeped in the bridge. The woman, Kyra, glanced over. Enzo laid eyes on her as she worked the controls. Eve was a no-go, that much was obvious, but this new girl, Kyra, was one smoking hot brunette. On the other hand...Enzo frowned, flicking his gaze to Greg, who was looking at Kyra in that way. They were an item. Fantastic. Enzo had broken up relationships before, he was no stranger to cheating, but...he had to admit a begrudging respect to this guy. Unless Greg was lying. Which he supposed was possible, but...no, there was just something about the guy that made Enzo believe him.

  “Oh...fuck,” Kyra said.

  “What?” Eve asked.

  “There's a ship on intercept and I think-”

  Kyra stopped talking as the other vessel opened fire on them. Both ships shuddered from the impact of the incoming fire.

  “Now what?!” Greg snapped.

  Despite his mind being so fatigued and his body pain-addled, Enzo felt a plan slap together in his head. He stood up straighter and grabbed his rifle. “We head over to my ship. You three make for the escape pods. I'll launch both ships directly for the Dark Ops vessel as a distraction. When we get close enough, we'll launch the pod directly into the fucker, punch through the hull and come out guns blazing, take over the ship.”

  “That...might actually work,” Kyra said.

  “Wait, why not just take your ship and run?” Greg asked.

  “No, we need to end this here and now. They can follow wherever we go,” Enzo replied.

  “Fine...let's get it done,” Greg said.

  They hurried off of the bridge and worked their way through the pair of airlocks. Once they were through, Enzo pointed them back towards the pod bay and then began to make his way forward, towards the bridge. He hoped he wasn't just bullshitting them. He was fairly confident that his plan would work, and wouldn't get them all killed. He came onto the bridge and sat down in the pilot's seat. Working fast, feeling the ship coming apart around him as the Dark Ops ship continued to open fire on them, he plotted the course.

  A moment later, the thrusters fired. Working both against the pull of Greg's ship and the incoming fire, his own vessel began to trundle forward. Enzo let out a breath, stood up and began hurrying back to the escape pods.

  * * * * *

  Greg settled into the seat. He and the other two had hastily pulled on simple EVA suits to protect them from the deadly cold of open space, should the need arise. Given the nature of what they were attempting, everyone felt it was a necessary precaution. About a minute after he felt the ship begin to move, which was difficult to tell amidst all the shuddering impacts, Enzo reappeared. He stepped into the cramped confines of the escape pod, looked at Greg and Kyra in their seats, Eve up front in the pilot's seat, and then down at the suit they'd grabbed for him.

  He caught sight of Enzo's fake arm again and was suddenly reminded of his own. Glancing down at his false limb, hidden within the pressure suit, he made a fist and didn't feel it. How long had it been since he'd thought of the wretched thin
g?

  “Now?” Eve asked, recalling his attention to the present.

  “No, not yet,” Enzo replied, closing the door behind him and then hurriedly pulling on the EVA suit. The ship continued to tremble and shake.

  “Now?” Eve asked once more.

  “Not yet,” Enzo replied, finishing up with his suit. After he slipped the glass plate into place, he stepped forward and glanced out of the front windows. Greg followed his gaze, his eyes widening as he realized how close they were.

  “Oh, shit, uh, yeah, now,” Enzo said, taking his seat.

  “Enzo, for fuck's sake-” Eve punched out.

  The trip lasted approximately two seconds. The escape pod exploded out of its metal nest aboard Enzo's stolen vessel, crossed the short distance between the two ships in record time, and abruptly slammed itself into the hull of the Dark Ops ship. For a moment, pure, painful chaos flooded the interior of the pod. Greg let out a sharp bark of pain as his whole body was thrown forward, straining against the restraints that kept him in place. He heard the others shouting out in similar pain. Then, dead silence enveloped them all.

  “We all still here?” Kyra asked, slowly unhooking herself from her seat and standing.

  “Present,” Greg groaned, doing the same.

  “I'm here,” Enzo said.

  “Barely,” Eve said. “It would appear that we're lodged in the hull.”

  “Fantastic...everybody out! We're going for a walk,” Enzo called.

  Greg groaned again. He hated going outside for space walks; they never seemed to end well. But in a moment they had all gathered at the back of the tiny escape pod, weapons in hand, ready to head out into the cold vacuum of space. Greg was first. He hit the access button and stepped out through the door, activating the magnetic boots built into the suit. He took a quick look around as he stepped from the pod onto the hull of the vessel.

  “Coast's clear,” he said into the little radio.