Dead Space by Kali Wallace (top romance novels txt) 📕

aimed my flashlight into the passage; Adisa did the same with his. The two unsteady beams caught glints of silver and blue in the darkness, some stationary, others moving restlessly and unpredictably, a starfall of reflections accompanied by the rain-like patter of metal feet on metal walls. The light was not strong enough to illuminate the entire passage. I could not see how many spiders there were up there, swarming down toward us. I could only hear the growing chorus of their clinking, clattering steps.

Adisa said, “Ops.”

I was already turning toward the door. We raced for it, all three of us jamming through in a heartbeat. I slammed my hand onto the control panel to shut the door—but the panel remained dark and unresponsive.

“Fuck!” I tried again, tapping frantically at the panel, but there was nothing. “Shut the fucking door, you asshole!”

The Overseer, if it was listening, did not bother to respond. I glanced over my shoulder, down the long hallway toward the systems room. It was too far. The clatter of the spiders was growing closer, and I had no way of knowing if the Overseer would even let us in.

The others realized the same thing. Hunter was the first to dart back into the junction and run for Res. Adisa and I were right behind her, but when we were through that door, we ran into the same problem: the panel was unresponsive. The Overseer would not let us close the door.

“The mine? Should we go back down?” I said, my breath already short and pained. The spiders were growing louder and louder. A couple were close enough that I could see their long, thin legs whipping as they scurried.

Adisa considered my suggestion for only a second. “No. The warehouse.”

Right. He was right. The warehouse door was already trying to close. All we had to do was climb over Delicata’s body, then pull it out of the way and let the door slam shut.

“Go,” I said, shoving Hunter toward the warehouse door. “Over him!”

She first shrugged off her tool bag and tossed it through the gap, then turned sideways to follow—or she tried to, but even with Delicata’s arm holding the door open she could not squeeze through. She braced herself against the frame, right above Delicata’s body, but it didn’t budge. The gears were grinding somewhere in the wall, trying to close. I ran over to help her, and the two of us together were able to shove the door open another few centimeters, enough for her to fit.

As soon as she was through, I lost my grip on the edge of the door—my fucking metal fingers—and it crushed against the body again. Delicata’s flesh split with a wet sound.

“Overhead!” Adisa shouted.

The first of the spiders dropped through the airlock. It hit the floor, rolled its long legs into a cage, and tumbled toward the wall. It unfolded again and ran up the wall alongside the door to Res.

I lunged for it without thinking, throwing myself into the wall to crush the spider before it could reach the warehouse door. There was a burst of acrid chemical scent, a snap of electricity against my metal shoulder. When I moved away, the crumpled bot fell to the floor.

“Toss your pack through,” Adisa said. “I’ll help with the door.”

A second spider followed the first, tumbling through the doorway in a tangle of long legs and flat body, a clattering, rustling, flashing knot of metal and motion.

I looked up. The spiders were roiling in the passageway, close enough now that the flashlight illuminated them clearly. Another two neared the airlock. Three. Ten. I couldn’t count them all. They raced down the walls of the passage, a rippling, clicking wave crashing onto us from above.

“Marley!” Adisa shouted. “Get through the door!”

Neither of us was as slender as Neeta Hunter. I looked around wildly, searching for something to pry with, something to hold the door, but there was nothing. I felt a tug on the back of my leg: a spider had dropped from the airlock and latched onto my trousers. My heart thumping with panic, I reached down frantically to yank it free. I flung it across the junction, where it smacked against the control panel by the mine lift.

The panel, which had been dark before, was now functioning.

Steward systems maintenance requested.

“Oh, fuck you.” I spun around. Every panel in the junction said the same thing. “Come on! Call them off! I know you’re listening!”

“Marley, we have to go!” Adisa was by the door, waiting for me.

Another spider dropped into the junction, and I crushed it with my boot as I stepped over. The crunch was a goddamn delight, that sound and that feeling, a single spark of joy slicing through the panic, but it didn’t last and there were so many more coming, so many swarming overhead that their clicking, clacking steps were all I could hear.

“Open the fucking door for us, please!” I shouted.

But the Overseer, if it was listening, ignored my plea.

Steward systems maintenance requested.

I braced myself against the warehouse doorframe again and, with Hunter helping from the other side, pulled on the door to force it open a little bit more. Together we managed to move it enough that the dead man slumped to the side, no longer pinned. Adisa pulled him out of the way.

“Go,” I said, jerking my head toward the door. “Get in there.”

I felt a spider land on my back, and I tensed. I couldn’t move yet. I couldn’t even flinch, lest I lose my grip on the door. Adisa slipped through the opening, then turned to help Hunter hold it open.

“Now, Marley,” he said sharply.

The spider on my back was creeping upward, gripping my shoulder with its spindly legs, a flash of silver and blue so close to my face, too close. I let go of the door to grab the bot and fling it away, but even as I did so I felt nudges and tugs on my trousers. They were