on the Dark Anomaly. Sometimes a spacious cavity deep in its bowels compressed, causing the aftershock to rumble through. Every now and then, it reached as far as the outer edge of the habitable sector.
Other times, it happened when a large, heavy ship crashed on the surface nearby.
It wasn’t unusual. He knew it from the lifetime spent here and from what he’d learned while reading with Nadia. Held together by the incredible gravity, the structure of the Dark Anomaly was fairly stable.
An inexplicable worry, however, nagged at him to hurry to Nadia.
The last of the crew were clearing the mess hall as he passed. It should be all empty by the time he brought Nadia here on the way to their new hiding place.
The corridor seemed endless. The feeling that something was wrong gripped his heart. He kept increasing his pace, finding himself practically running the last few paces.
Lesh lay in the threshold inside the glass room. He didn’t move when the doors opened.
“Lesh?” Wyck dropped to his knees, lifting the animal’s middle head...Lesher, Nadia had named it. “Are you okay? What happened to you, buddy? Where is Nadia?”
Lesh didn’t respond. His eyes remained closed.
Alarm spiked higher. Mahdis lived as long as errocks did. Lesh had always been healthy.
“Lesh!” He shook the animal, in desperation. Lesh released a soft hiss, it sounded like it came from all three of his heads at once. “You’re alive.”
“Nadia.” Wyck darted a glance around the room. His head swam with dizziness at the sight of the lights behind the glass. Even while he was sitting on the solid floor in the entranceway, the unsettling feeling of floating churned his stomach.
There was a reason why the errocks of the Dark Anomaly never went on spacewalks to repair the battery panels outside. None of them could stand the sight of open space. Solid walls grounded him and brought the comforting sense of normalcy.
An unknown massive dark shape outside obscured the lights on the right. This must be the newest ship that had just crashed, causing the tremors he’d felt earlier. The side of it touched the glass of Nadia’s room.
“Nadia!” he called into the room.
Squinting against the lights, he made out her shape on the sleeping pallet by the far wall.
“Nadia!” he roared as loud as he could.
She didn’t move, and his heart dropped into the hollow of his stomach. Dread chilled his insides, making it hard to breathe.
“Nadia, wake up!” he kept yelling, but she didn’t seem to hear him and wouldn’t come to him.
What the fuck had happened here?
Fighting the dizziness, he examined the dark shape leaning against the glass on the right—the newly crashed ship. Even judging by the small part he could see, it must be massive. A fine web of cracks spread through the glass from the point of its contact with the side of Nadia’s room. The clear material from which the room had been constructed was infinitely stronger than any regular glass. Yet it obviously wasn’t indestructible.
Wyck realized that his difficulty breathing didn’t come merely from his worry and stress. The air inside the room was thin—the oxygen must be steadily escaping through the cracks.
From Nadia’s safe haven, the room could quickly turn into her grave.
Lesh sucked in a long breath, releasing a choked coughing noise.
At least he was most definitely alive, which Wyck couldn’t say for sure about Nadia.
Chilling anxiety buzzed through him with urgency. He needed to go to Nadia to get her out of the death trap this room had become. With the oxygen seeping out, this place was slowly killing her if it hadn’t already.
There was no time to get help, provided there even was anyone in the entire Dark Anomaly who would help him without asking for something in return.
He needed to get her out as quickly as possible, only he couldn’t fathom the thought of entering this place. The idea of stepping off the metal floor panel and onto the clear glass felt like diving headfirst into the abyss from which there’d be no return.
His breathing turned shallow, his lungs straining to draw in enough of the receding oxygen. Fear suffocated him even more effectively than the lack of air.
He ripped his vest off and tossed it on the glass. With a bracing breath, he took his first step onto the vest.
The room seemed to sway around him. He spread his arms wide for balance, as if he were treading a tight rope suspended in nothing.