Chapter Text
White sits at the table in front of her, leaning back and invisible beyond the dark visor. His gaze is unseen, but she feels his ichor: profuse, irate, disgusted, vitriol, and every bit reflecting the feeling she feels toward him and more.
“I trusted you,” Gray wants to spit, but she knows better than to muck up the inside of her visor.
“Me? You trusted me? Some nerve you have, Impostor!” The man stands and slams his hands on the table, white spacesuit straining from the tension.
On the side, the only buffer between White and Gray is a tall man in a spacesuit as deep and dark as the void. Obsidian, named aptly so because Black is—was—already taken as a title by another crewmate at the space station, embodies the voice of reason. He is quiet and firm, occasionally grunting as the two nauts squabble and call each other out. There’s no indication what he thinks; Gray knows the swing vote could go either way.
“You know there’s no way for Blue’s killer to be anyone but her, right?” White interjects, waving a hand at Obsidian when the latter doesn’t respond. “She was the last one seen with them! And she vouched for Orange and he was the Impostor!”
Gray’s gaze narrows behind her helmet. She wants to rip out her hair in frustration but only clenches her fists instead. White’s guilt seeps through—He’s trying to pin Blue’s murder on her, and Blue vouched for her the night before his body was discovered! It’s clearly a way to redirect the flow of conversation and focus on her, as if she’s the only suspect, as if White isn’t seeping of guilt left and right! And it isn’t like Obsidian can be the killer; he’s been with her the past week, all the way up until Blue died! When the O2 was sabotaged, he fixed both things while she was locked in storage.
White’s presence was unaccounted for, and it’s not her. Obsidian is clear. White is the killer. She doesn’t know how to make her point clearer. When White continues to blab on and on about her absence in the face of imminent suffocating, when the man doesn’t let up pointing out every discrepancy in her voice—how dare he insinuate she’s guilty because she fumbles in her speech—when White goes on, and on, and on for two minutes ranting and raving over all the times she was late to meetings or struggled on her tasks, the conversation reaches a boiling point.
“Shut up!” Gray snarls and slams her fists on the table. She is up on her feet in a second; her spacesuit’s boots thud when their weight hits the floor. White falls quiet; Obsidian turns to face Gray. Gray keeps her gaze locked on White’s form as she snaps, “Go ahead and vote! Do it! Get it over with! I’m sick of your shit—”
She grabs a datapad from a pouch attached to her waist and punches in a vote into the automated system. Nearby, Obsidian does the same. White is the last to vote but his body posture reeks of confidence; he is the loudest and first to shout when the votes come through: Gray receives one, Obsidian zero, and White two.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” White snaps at Obsidian, falling off his seat in his attempts to scramble backward and away. He doesn’t get more than a few steps before the space station’s defense system processes the vote and powers on. Obsidian cocks his head to one side while White continues to curse and flip off the space station’s unfolding plasma turrets and the two nauts alike.
Gray half-expects to see the man transform into the monster he is. She moves away from the emergency meeting table and grips her fists at her sides. Obsidian joins her while a luscious voice bellows, “Mira H.Q. Defense System online… Target identified. Executing judiciary protocol zeta. Please proceed to the ejection site crew member W-H-I-T-E-zero-one or you will be terminated.”
“What’s wrong with you? She’s a monster! Using you—Obsidian! Obsidian!” In a second, White is not standing by with guns trained on his environmental suit. He lunges forward at the two crew members; Gray yells in warning, but before she can get react further the Mira H.Q. Defense System thunders loudly. Something charges and energy crackles before a bolt of light—blue, beautiful, deadly—rockets forward and arcs around White’s body.
Gray catches herself mid-step, partially obscuring Obsidian from the body. She gasps and holds a hand up to shield herself from the light. When the searing rays fade and the pain ceases there are chunks riddled across the ground. Patches of the white spacesuit and crimson viscera mingle with yellow fats and hunks of red muscle. Pools of plasma linger and the scent of burning flesh filters through her suit’s ventilation system. She switches to recycled air, but the odor doesn’t leave, only becomes stagnant, and Gray coughs and retches air in her suit. She gives up and unlocks her visor, willing it to slide down and take in the gruesome sight of her own accord.
“He should have cooperated.” Obsidian’s voice is close yet it feels far away. He stands at her side, looking at the remains avidly. “Ejections don’t kill crewmates. He had a chance in space.”
“He’s an Impostor—He should be dead, right?” Gray doesn’t look over. Her eyes shut and she turns from the gruesome scene. “Impostors should stay dead. They board our stations and slaughter us.”
“According to Mira,” Obsidian interjects, a sharp note to the man’s otherwise calm tone.
Gray shudders. “Mira doesn’t… Hasn’t lied.”
She takes her datapad and enters in the date, jotting down details of the votes and the subsequent termination of the naut. Impostor, she corrects herself.
“It happened too quickly for me to say earlier, but,” the woman pauses, uncertain words on her tongue. She pushes the fluttering feelings aside and straightens upright. When she looks over, Gray notes Obsidian hasn’t moved or taken off his helmet. He remains tall, firm, and fearless, every bit the leader she—and others, once—expects him to be. Gray’s lips twitch at the edges before she averts her gaze and goes on. “—Thank you for believing me. I know—It didn’t look good, but…”
“You have nothing to apologize for, Gray.” Obsidian’s words don’t reassure her or the guilt on her shoulders.
The rest of the crew is still dead.
She shakes her head. Her long hair, having grown since she first shaved it off in preparation for joining Mira H.Q. months ago, dances and curls against her chin and nape freely. She crosses to the window of the cafeteria, unsure where else to go or what to do. Absentmindedly, her hand messes with a stray strand of hair.
“What happens now?” She breathes out, distracted by the weight of everything around her. Behind the naut, an automated sanitation program activates and deploys dozens of tiny drones to clean the viscera left by White’s body.
“That depends on… you.” Obsidian joins her by the cafeteria window. The space station floats lazily, drowning in a sea of stars and hundreds of twinkling lights and dust particles.
Gray cocks a brow. She turns to face him, only to find he’s stepped forward, closing the distance between the two. The same, aggravating flutter of feelings in her stomach returns. Gray feels heat simmer in her face when she sees Obsidian undoing the clasps keeping his helmet sealed to his suit. Her eyes widen. “You—You’re the captain, not me.”
“Third in command—No, second in command now.” The man corrects her. He twists oxygen hoses off the side of his helmet. A hiss escapes the suit.
Gray forces her eyes away. There is no reason to dwell on bodily reactions to… certain individuals. “I mean—”
“What do you think we should do, Gray?” Her fearless leader asks as he takes his helmet off and holds it at his side, tucking the object securely under one arm.
Obsidian’s gaze bores into her side. Gray doesn’t dare look. The thump thump thump of her heart rises in volume until it is an erratic but constant reminder she’s alive. “We—Need to tell—The headquarters. The—Mira. We need to tell Mira. Mira H.Q. They need to be informed we had a breach in security—Two Impostors slaughtered most of the crew—They’ll send a more specialized team to the site. Nauts who know what they’re doing and how to clean up—”
“…Is that the best course of action?” Now he has her full attention.
Gray ignores the heat in her face and glances at him. Her gaze scours his face: a naut’s, nothing out of the ordinary, with deep black skin and eyes shining like something from the stars. His sharp jawline is accented by supple lips and a hint of stubble around his chin. When she meets his eyes, she sees a fading twinkle and imagines a supernova: an explosion about to go off, a force beyond measure. She pauses, taken aback, when Obsidian lifts his hands and sets them on her shoulders.
“You saw the defense system. What it’s capable of. If anyone enters a crew member’s identification code—”
“I know what it does,” Gray begins to argue, but Obsidian gently squeezes one shoulder and she stops.
“What do you think Mira will do if they hear about this?” The man asks softly, carefully, almost as if he’s afraid of the answer.
“Wh—I told you,” Gray shoves his hands off and stares him down. “They’ll send a team in to help clean up! That’s what we’re taught in training—There’s protocols—”
“You believe they follow these protocols?”
“Why wouldn’t they?” Gray takes a step back, baffled by the captain’s words. “Why would Mira H.Q. lie to us? We’re nauts—”
“They’ve always lied,” Obsidian states, voice rising in volume as he drops his hands to his sides. His eyes gleam with a mix of emotions she doesn’t expect to see in him. “Gray—Listen to me—Mira H.Q. is not what you think they are. They’re using you—Using us—Running experiments on alternate reality—"
Gray’s hands ball into fists. Her eyes are wide. “What the hell are you saying? Captain—Obsidian!”
She sees it then: the unnatural twitch of a form not quite solid, long maws and teeth and tongue shuddering beneath the surface of faux flesh and fake suit. Gray’s nerves run cold. She takes another step back, words choking in her throat, as the realization sucks her in and chews her up with rancid, gnashing teeth. Gray’s heart pounds a million miles a second. She doesn’t register anything her strong, brave captain tells her before adrenaline kicks in, disbelief swarms, and her brain devolves to its most basic instinct: flight.
She runs, a cry for help on her lips as she scampers past Obsidian—or tries to, but the Impostor’s form shakes and suddenly he isn’t a naut. He’s something else, long and slithery and full of tendrils, a shapeshifter in the worst way, and he snaps an elongated limb and strikes her ankles. Gray screams as she’s ripped back against the window, her body smashing into the glass while disconcerting limbs wrap around her like a python constricting prey.
“Gray—Listen to me—” Obsidian begins again, his words curt as if he’s told her to return to her tasks.
Her eyes are wide and fearful. “Let me go—Obsidian! Obsidian!”
“I can’t do that,” he’s remorseful but not enough.
The grip on Gray’s body tightens until her arms are pinned to her sides. Obsidian—no, not Obsidian, an Impostor—oozes forward and repeats himself in disembodied tones. “You need to listen to me—Nothing’s what you think it is, Gray—Think about the situation—”
“You made me vote out a naut!” The realization hurts as much as the last, disbelief replaced by anger as she struggles and thrashes against the Impostor’s limbs. He’s ungodly strong, as powerful as the monsters spoken between recruits at Mira’s formal naut academy.
Gray’s eyes fill with tears. She bares her teeth, “Monster!”
“Gray—” Obsidian’s form is a sluggish mess of space, a flurry of stars and mesh of celestial mass forced into flesh, and if it wasn’t terrifying and wicked Gray might dare think it as beautiful.
But not now. Never now. Her anger blazes in her chest. By the time her struggles cease—out of exhaustion, not willpower—Gray is a panting, wretched mess seething with vitriol and possessing raw hate. Her glare is cold and deadly as she meets one of Obsidian’s dozens of twinkling eyes. “You won’t get away with it. Mira will find you eventually. They’ll notice the station’s quiet. They—”
“Gray,” Obsidian shakes, though his grip on her remains. “All I want is to explain—”
“Shut up! Murderer!” Gray thrashes again. “I’ll kill you myself—! I swear it! You fuck—I hate you! I'll kill you!"
Her words are cut off in a shaky breath when the Impostor’s body splits and, amidst the abyssal form before her, something pulls her in and wraps her up tight in its grasp. Gray opens her mouth to scream but no sound comes out. Cold—freezing—arms wrap around her in an embrace she doesn’t expect. The woman freezes as Obsidian’s incorporeal body soothes her in sounds of an alien language: deep, incomprehensible, infinite but demanding. Her body weakens. Her struggles cease. Sleep clouds the edges of her vision as her mind is lulled into a calm.
“Wh…y…?” the noise comes this time, a choked whisper.
“You won’t remember if I tell you,” the Impostor whispers, the voice familiar and gnawing from a time she doesn't know. Something like a hand but not brushes hair off her forehead. “I’m sorry.”
He’s asphyxiating her in himself. Memories she doesn’t recall float to the surface and breach the wake of her consciousness. Then, like her fragile flesh, it too begins to suffocate and die.
Gray’s eyes shut. “Ob…”
“By every star in the sky,” the voice tells her, sweet and sad and smooth. “I promise I'll find a way out—"
Obsidian's form grips the dead naut as the world crumples around him.
He failed, again.
The alarms buzz violently inside the woman’s quarters. Her eyes shoot open and cold sweat sticks to her forehead. Grimacing, Gray rises in nothing more than a thin thermal bodysuit. Her gaze narrows as she looks at her hands: naut-like, slim, ready to continue with the medial labor the bastard company forces nauts through. It is but another reason to hate the corporation, but she keeps th thought to herself; any sign of disrespect can alert the authorities at Mira H.Q. and the last thing she needs is another swarm of nauts hunting her down. It’s been too short a time since she broke off from her kin and the mess the group left on the trading vessel is still under investigation.
You can handle this. The woman clambers to the mirror and eyes it, lip twitching until her teeth are barred. She despises what she sees in the mirror: Mira H.Q.’s finest, another sack of flesh sacrificed to shareholder greed and corporate domination. Without hesitating, the Impostor rears back and slams a fist through the shining panes.
Her blood drips a luminescent green. Her severed tendons, flesh, and muscle knits together in a flash of swirling white stars, eventually forming a glove-covered hand identical to any naut. She flexes it, satisfied, and turns to track down her gray-hued space suit.
Ten minutes later, the Impostor emerges from her quarters. Her fellow crew members stride past her in the direction of the mess hall. Gray hesitates, counting the bodies and faces until it clicks: no White.
There’s never been a White here, she corrects herself, brows furrowing behind her helmet. Only a Black called…
“Don’t idle, Gray.” The captain’s voice makes her tense. Gray’s eyes swivel up and she finds herself staring at the suited figure of a man she knows far too well.
“Forgive me, Captain.” The woman huffs and crosses her arms. “I’m not an early riser.”
“You’ll get used to it,” Obsidian retorts, unamused, but he dawdles a moment—long enough for Gray to raise a brow.
“What?”
“Are you—Sleeping well?”
“Never better,” Gray answers. “And yourself?”
The moment’s hesitation makes Gray’s mind shudder. She doesn’t know why, but she fixates on him: tall, firm, unyielding. Obsidian is the collected, rational leader of the nauts onboard. A valuable target to take out if she gets the chance.
But now isn’t the time. Too many nauts saw the two trailing behind the group. She can’t risk it.
“Don’t worry about me. You have too many things to concern yourself with as my… third-in-command,” Obsidian hums a moment, folding his arms behind his back. He clears his throat, “…Enjoy your breakfast.”
Then he is gone, striding away with silent steps. Gray’s chest races with the sound of fake hearts beating wildly against her ribcage, just shy of her central maw split across her chest. Her Impostor tongue slinks through hidden teeth along her torso and she grits the jaw in her head and the one in her chest with equal measure.
She’s going to hunt them down: him and the others. Every naut deserves to die for what Mira did to her species.
Every. Single. One.