Free Silhouette by Arthur McMahon Page B

Burmin decided to attack one of our worlds with this behemoth…. She did not want to finish the thought.
    She had the presence of mind to shove all worrisome thoughts out of her head, knowing they would do her no good. Burmin were everywhere, much more concentrated than she had seen at the compound, and she had to remain focused to avoid detection. She searched through the mission briefing files stored in her Ocu and pulled up long-distance photos of the ship which showed that it had the shape of a burning comet, tail and all. She identified the location of the spaceport which was positioned on the underside of the ship’s belly, but none of the files had any indication of where slaves would be taken.
    She had saved Davi’s body signature, which was a conglomeration of his heat signature, vitals, biophoton emissions, and more which together acted as a way to single his body out through her Ocu vision. Unfortunately, the amount of bodies made the enhanced sight blindingly bright and it would be painful to use, but it was her only way of finding him within this floating metropolis. Silhouette switched back on her Ocu’s sight and searched for her brother’s body signature. Like searching for a sun spot with the naked eye, finding Davi’s signature hurt like hell. The brightness was not damaging her eyesight like a sun would, but it sure gave her a godawful headache.
    Once her Ocu locked onto his signature, she again shut off the sight and then pushed her palm into her eye. “Fucking hell,” she muttered to herself.
    The Ocu gave her a sense of direction, but unfortunately there was no way to identify any specific location in that mess of light. She would have to move toward the tail of the ship and try again when she was closer to Davi.
    Through shadows and patience, Silhouette made her way out of the transfer ship and across the space port. Dozens, maybe hundreds, of docked ships waited to travel to various compounds across Nye or back to their homeworld of Burm. She passed by a map of the Juggernaut as she crossed the space port and recorded the image with her Ocu. The diagram’s labels made little sense to her, but the layout was similar to modern human constructions, only much larger. There was a bridge up front, a port down below, an engine in the rear, plenty of small personnel rooms throughout the ship, and a few big storage and conference areas in the middle. Even alien races do not often stray from simplicity.
    Silhouette kept the ship’s map in a transparent view over her vision, only seeing it if she focused on it. The halls were busy, which meant any travel would be a slow-going affair. Patience . There would always be an opportunity to move forward, whether it be one step at a time or a fast sprint, and she would get where she needed to be. Shadows were her roads of safe passage; she knew how to traverse them, and they existed in all worlds.
    Navigating toward her brother took several hours as she passed by hundreds of rooms in the private quarters, most of them occupied and all without doors. Switching on her thermal vision was still painful, but as she moved closer to Davi his body signature became easier to locate and her pace through the corridors hastened as foot traffic decreased near the rear of the ship. The prisoner quarters were more populated with human slaves and prisoners than they were with Burmin officers. Silhouette found Davi standing in a long line of newly arrived humans, each waiting to be processed and directed somewhere, likely toward work that needed to be done. The people were docile, so accepting of their situation, most of them having spent their entire lives under Burmin rule. Silhouette felt nauseated.
    She could not approach her brother at the moment, so she decided to find a place to sequester herself. After thorough searching the only empty room she could find was a large auditorium. How strange , she thought, who would have guessed that Burmin enjoy the theater ? The room