Hands scrambling across metal, sliding through gore. Shallow breaths. A pounding heart. Something coming. Something hunting. Something...

Needles—needle-like legs. Stabbing. In the dark. In the blood.

The blood.

A shriek.

"Koel!"

A jolt. Agony splintered her skull.

"Fucking snap out of it, you useless pu'ta."

Another shockwave through flesh; a blow hard enough to light a stinging fire across her cheek. The images in her mind shattered.

Jinx groaned. For a moment, she couldn't move, couldn't even connect with her tongue. Then she managed to blink—then blink again. Pain poured into her head. With a curse, she pried open her eyes.

Light. Too strong after the dark. The tang of vomit lingered in her mouth. What had frigging hit her? A runaway air-sled? God.

She had the urge to throw up. Only the extremely pissed pair of eyes in front of her stopped her.

Olsen looked ready to bury her.

"What. The. Fuck?" he said as her gaze met his.

It took Jinx a few seconds to process the words—and to realise she was on the floor inside the airlock, propped against a wall. Olsen and Rolli were crouched before her, face shields up, exposing dark stares. She scrambled to orientate herself. The last thing she remembered was walking into the Xykeree ship to start her inspection, the andropod behind her, winding up her nerves.

No. A cold feeling slid through her. Entering the ship wasn't all she recalled. She remembered laser beams heading her off, skittering sounds, glinting metal, and...

Panic. Flickering nightmares—a sense of irrational fury.

A flash of heat and light—then drowning darkness.

Nausea returned full force. Denial came an instant later, but the cold metal under her and the eyes watching her didn't allow it to take hold.

She was on the floor, her head spinning, her gut about to empty, and no one had put her there but herself.

She'd lost her grip on her mind.

Real horrors, not imagined ones or data net clips, blinded her. Her father's face contorted with rage. Spittle, curses, gibberish. God, she'd forgotten the babbling, the rocking, the—

"Koel." Olsen shook her, knocking her head against the wall. "Don't you bloody zone on me again."

Jinx barely registered the impact. If she got treatment, she'd be a mindless shell. Better that she just—

"You want to get shot, freak?" Another hard shake. "Keep fucking quivering like that. I'll do it."

Her skull clunked against metal again. Panic bubbled up. Then years of denial kicked in, pure survival reflex. She slammed the door that had been thrown open, walled it up mental brick by mental brick. What had happened... She'd deal with it later, when she was alone.

"Get off me." She shoved Olsen back—then winced, bells ringing in her ears. "Shit. How hard did you frigging slap me?" Her head felt like it might crack open.

Olsen flashed his capped teeth. "You deserved it."

"The hell I did."

"You fainted like a sorry little girl, Koel. Right in the middle of an inspection. Rolli had to drag your arse out of that alien freak show. Weak, pu'ta, fucking weak, even for you."

More memories of crawling darkness and laser light. Jinx forced them back, trying to think only of the arse-kicking she owed Olsen. But she failed. Something niggled at her. It felt like a block in her throat—words she was meant to say but couldn't remember. She wanted to smack herself in the forehead, jolt something loose.

Rolling her head back against the wall, she fought off another wave of nausea. "How long was I out?"

Olsen grunted. "Fuck knows. We tried to go in after the time limit passed, but the bastards aimed a dozen lasers and shite at us. Eventually, they let Rolli go after you. The kid's so fucked he didn't even flinch."

Jinx looked to Rolli. He was staring at her, tattooed face a dark mask, hands resting on his knees as he balanced on the balls of his feet. Where Olsen was tense, Rolli was ... blank. Whatever pharmaceutical he'd taken had to have been an insanely mellow blend. It was probably the reason the roaches hadn't shot him. In his current state, he was as threatening as a brain-damaged puppy.

"You get me off the ship, Rolli?" She met his unblinking gaze. "Thanks. I owe you."

"You were over time."

"Uh-huh." Jinx clocked the officer's too calm tone and felt a twinge of disquiet. The kid was totally zoned. "How'd you find me?"

The officer shrugged. "Bugs didn't want you there. They showed me."

"Fuck me." Olsen swiped a glove over his face. "You need some rehab, Rolli. That's for shite sure. And you"—he drove a blunt finger at Jinx—"need to report to Medical, right fucking now."

Jinx's stomach dropped away. No way in hell was she going to Medical.

She grabbed Olsen's arm before he could rise and hit the airlock controls. "I just need to catch my breath. Give me a damn second."

"You passed out like a starved, backstreet whore, Koel."

"Brief reminder, genius, there's an alien ship a few metres away that needs to be dealt with—calmly. People see me on the floor, it'll start a shit fest of intergalactic proportions. You call Medical, I'll put you on the first goddamn gurney that arrives."

Olsen shook his head with a snarl and resettled into his crouch. "You going to tell me what the fuck happened?"

Jinx baulked at the question. What was in her head, shoved to the back, was a shifting mess. But worse than the fragmented memories and nightmares was that sense of missing pieces. There was something she needed to remember. Something that urged her to pick herself up off the floor—now.

Again, she rejected everything that shrieked panic and paranoia. From the mess, she grabbed a truth she could almost stomach. "If I were to guess, I'd say I had the crap scared out of me." She braced herself for the obligatory comment about pants-pissing runts.

Olsen didn't follow script. He snatched up his rifle. "What the hell did the roaches do?"

She stared at him, only just resisted the urge to shove him onto his macho arse. She didn't need a damn champion—to be saved. Waste of everyone's frigging time. "You going to declare war on my behalf? You'll need a bigger bug zapper than that port-issue electrolaser."

"Stow the smartarse shite, Koel. It takes more than a few bugs to turn you into a fucking girl. What happened?"

"A few? That ship is crawling with roaches! Little fuckers with lasers and bigger ones with ... with..." A fragment of time came back.

The clang of heavy articulated limbs shifting. An arch of composite armour: a tail, over seven metres high, tipped with weaponry.

"Shit." The blood drained from her face. "A scorp. I saw a goddamn scorp." It had come at her in the hold—aimed God knew what weapons at her.

"Breathe." Olsen grabbed her shoulder before she could double over. "Damn it, don't make me slap you again."

"It was huge—and pissed off. Is that why I fainted?" The idea turned her head light. An eighty-tonne military exskel had confronted her. Was she simply traumatised, not delusional?

"It doesn't matter why you passed out." Olsen tightened his grip. "You ain't going back in there, so pull it the fuck together."

"If anyone suggests I should, shoot me." Memories of the huge exskel threatened to steal her air. "I'm so killing Dem for assigning me this inspection."

"Yeah, he should've known better than to send a runt pu'ta to do a man's job. Need a fucking tissue? What about a hug?"

The urge to punch Olsen cleared her head. "That extra sensitivity training you got volunteered for was worth it. You're a prize human being, Olsen."

"And you're pissing me off." The officer pushed to his feet. "We leaving this air can anytime soon?"

"Sure, anything to get you out of my damn—Oh, shit." Reality—ship inspection, blackout—slapped her hard. "Frig, frig, frig. Give me a second." Did she even have a report to submit? She punched on her com.

"Make it quick, pu'ta." Olsen hauled Rolli up by his scruff. "You grovel at my feet much longer, I'm gonna get horny."

Jinx didn't bother to flip him off, just brought up the relevant report. The mundane act tied up her insides. For the first time ever, she didn't trust herself to recall inspection details. Little pieces were coming back to her with some clarity—like the scorp—but not enough. Had she merely freaked out? Or was this the start of the mental degradation she'd been expecting?

Swallowing tautly, she focused on her records. They had to back up what little she remembered, fill in some blanks, give her some kind of an explanation.

What she found was a concise report. Mostly complete.

She'd done her job. Somehow.

"Priority checks done." She scrolled through the worksheet, ignoring the unnerving sense of disconnection it gave her. Her job follow-up list consisted of a single note about heat scarring, a reminder to analyse some results.

The scent of death and burnt things came back to her. Her heart rate quickened. She skimmed through her records. That nagging feeling she was missing something grew. Odd details returned: melted plex; the fluctuating drone of the ship; breaths of cool air in the humidity. Holding back loose hair from her face, she again repressed the desire to thump her forehead.

Had something about the med bay bothered her? Despite the checkmarks on her report, she couldn't recall the room, only the inventory. Columns of strange glyphs. Had the last one been dates? If so, there'd been a lot of entries added over the last few weeks, probably reorder requests, but what did—?

"What's that?" Olsen's question snapped her back.

Jinx cursed under her breath and closed her notes. The port wouldn't care about a possible spate of crew injuries; right now, nor did she. "It's a report that's ready to file." Dem could deal with whatever came next.

Including her resignation.

God. She closed her eyes. Was it really time? To return to Sylus 3, her father—the clinic? Shit. She'd rather lose herself in the void.

"You need Medical, Koel?"

"What?" She snapped her eyes open, jerking back from the black hole widening inside her. "No, damn it, I don't need Medical. I told you, I'm fine. If I need anything, it's a goddamn drink." She hauled herself to her feet. "I've got enough to clear the Bullhead for repairs. Let's get the hell out of here."

Olsen didn't move out of her way. Instead, he pointed to her right arm. "That, runt. I'm talking about that, not your weak, female constitution."

"Repeat that jewel of wisdom after I kick you in the balls."

"Koel..."

"What?" Jinx lifted her elbow, following the officer's gaze. A rusty stain marred the shirt's cuff and the lower part of her sleeve.

Her first thought was of nasty alien infections. Her next was that she was not dealing with Medical, not even for a minor nick. "It's noth—"

Hands scrambling across decking. A flickering light out of reach: her scanner.

A winking alert: Restricted organic detected; warrant required.

Jinx's throat jammed. A fragment of knowledge clicked into place.

She'd found blood.

On the deck. On a Xykeree vessel.

Human blood.