Excerpt of Enthraller by Michelle Diener

“What’s the job?” Ed leaned back against the smooth metal of the petral hull and crossed his arms over his chest.

Guttra lifted his hands in hope. “A transport came in yesterday. Scanners clocked it in as having one occupant. Sure enough, only one occupant stepped out to register.” Guttra paused. “Problem was, the traveller was a Verdant String woman, average height, slim.”

“What’s the problem with that?”

“The occupant the scanner clocked coming in weighed three tons and was the size of a light travel pod. Which was why they were watching what got out at the docks.”

Ed cocked his head. “A shape changer?” He whistled. “Thought they were all gone over a hundred years back.”

“Exterminated, you mean?” Guttra raised his eyebrows.

Yeah, Ed had meant that, but it was generally frowned on to talk of extermination on Aponi. Not the warm, fuzzy, happy families image the VSC liked to project.

Not that they hadn’t had cause, in the case of shape changers.

An Aponi exploration unit had stumbled on the tiny satellite moon, Nai, that was the original habitat of the shape changers. What no one back home had realized, until it was too late, was the shape changers had killed most of the explorers, shifted to replicate them, and come back to Aponi to wreak havoc.

It had been days before the authorities had realized the mild-mannered scientists who had come back from Nai were actually cunning predators who could hardly believe their luck in landing in Demeter, Aponi’s capital city, with all its unsuspecting inhabitants.

It had been a slaughterhouse until the VSC Special Forces had managed to stop the killings.

“So Captain Hyt thinks the scanner will work in identifying a shape changer? What does he think it will pick up?”

Guttra tilted his head. “Given the Guan scanner your fellow Halatian created is still considered the most accurate way to see inside a ship and work out how many people and weapons are in it, Hyt thinks it’s worth a shot to have you use it on the suspected shape changer.”

“So he wants me to walk up to her, scanner engaged, and see if I can see by looking at her if she changes into something that weighs three tons?” Ed shook his head. “She’s not a spaceship.”

“I think Captain Hyt was told the scanner’s been used for more than just ships in the past. This is highly classified info and we weren’t given further details. Whoever it was who spoke to Hyt said it was possible the scanner could give us a reading that would let us know, one way or another.”

“I’ve used the scanner for years, and I’ve never used it on anything other than a ship or building. And I haven’t heard of anyone else using it any other way, either.”

Guttra lifted his shoulders. “You haven’t worked for Special Forces for two years. Don’t worry, there’ll be a full crew around you, and it’ll be people from my team. Just do your thing. Like usual.”

Like usual? The Guan scanner could not give an accurate reading if there was anything between it and the ship or building it was scanning, so for years that had meant free floating in space, equipment attached to his head, the readout a thin transparent screen in front of his eyes.

Standing in a hover port, scanning an individual person, was not usual at all. In fact, he doubted it would even work, no matter what some high-up had whispered in Captain Hyt’s ear.

Guttra claimed this was a real case, but it smacked of the obvious ploys Special Forces had used before to woo him back into the fold. It wasn’t so much that they were sorry that one of the idiots in charge had pointed him at the wrong target, then tried to lay the blame on him for the political fallout. It was more to do with the fact that Guan, the architect and engineer who’d developed what became known as the Guan scanner, made it impossible for anyone who didn’t have Halatian DNA to operate.

It was why, he was sure, Guttra had kept in touch with him all this time. Ed would like to have believed Guttra was an actual friend, but he suspected he kept up a connection on the orders of Special Forces, in case they could find a way to lure him back.

And the reason for their tenacity was that Special Forces missed having accurate information on whatever ships were approaching them than they’d had before Ed left, especially as things got uglier and uglier between the VSC and the Caruso.

They were desperate to get him back, especially now they’d been so careless with Lily.

“It’s not just like usual, though, is it?” Ed clenched his fists. “Even if the scanner can somehow see what’s really there, if we close in, what’s stopping it changing into its real self?”

“Does that mean you won’t do it?” Guttra asked.

Ed considered the petral he’d been tinkering with. That had been the third time he’d taken that porthole window off and put it back on anyway.

“When is this happening?”