The lights flickered. Finger-sized holes stitched their way across the inside of the bulkhead, and a dull boom echoed through the hull. Alarms began to shriek, loud even over the hiss of escaping air.
Kira stayed where she was, clinging to the wall, uncertain of what else to do.
The ship jolted again. A white-hot circle appeared on what had just been the ceiling, and seconds later, a disk-shaped section of the hull flew inward.
“Form up!” Koyich shouted as a dense swarm of nightmares poured into the Jelly ship.
CHAPTER VI. INTO THE DARK
1.
In an instant, a dense wall of smoke, chaff, and chalk clogged the air. The Marines opened fire, as did Wrnakkr and the rest of the Jellies—the deafening thunder of their guns obliterating all other sound.
The nightmares hardly slowed in the face of the barrage, and the sheer mass of the creatures allowed them to quickly cover the distance between them and the first line of Jellies.
The Jellies swung into action, their tentacles gripping and ripping every nightmare within reach. The beast-like attackers were foul to look at. Whether equipped with four limbs or two, arms or tentacles, teeth or beaks, scales or fur—or misbegotten combinations thereof—the creatures to the last appeared malformed, tumor-ridden, and sickly. Yet they possessed a crazed energy, as if hopped up on enough stims to kill a full-grown man.
Kira knew she might be able to survive the attack, but she didn’t think Nielsen or Falconi could. Nor could she protect them or Trig; there were just too many nightmares.
Falconi seemed to have reached the same conclusion. He was already retreating toward an opened shell door at the back of the room while pulling Trig’s cocooned form after himself. Nielsen followed close behind, firing occasional bursts into the horde of incoming bodies.
Kira didn’t hesitate. She dove after the two of them. Several bullets ricocheted off her as she flew through the air: hard thumps that made her catch her breath.
She arrived at the door just after Nielsen. Together, they hurried down the dark corridor on the other side.
“I got a signal through to the Wallfish!” said Falconi. “They’re on their way.”
“ETA?” Nielsen said, crisp and professional.
“Seven minutes out.”
“Then we’ll—”
A thrashing something at the corner of Kira’s vision caused her to twist around, expecting to be jumped. Nielsen did the same.
A Jelly came crawling along the side of the round corridor. Ichor leaked from a crack in its carapace, and one of its tentacles had been shot off three-quarters of the way toward the tip.
[[Itari here: Strike Leader Wrnakkr orders me to guard you.]]
“What does it want?” Falconi said, wary.
“It’s here to help.”
Several of the Marines scrambled into the corridor and took up positions on either side of the open door. “Keep going!” shouted one of them. “Find cover!”
“Come on,” said Falconi, kicking himself farther down the corridor.
[[Itari here: This way.]] And the Jelly crawled into the lead. Its wounded tentacle left splatters of ichor across the walls.
They hurried deeper into the ship, through dimly lit rooms and narrow passageways. The sounds of combat continued to reverberate through the hulclass="underline" hollow booms and cracks and high-pitched shrieks of the enraged nightmares.
Then the ship lurched again, harder than before. Sparks filled Kira’s vision as the wall slammed into her, and her breath whooshed out. In front of her, Falconi lost his grip on Trig.…
With a horrendous scraping sound, a huge red and black spike plowed through the decking in front of her, separating her and Trig from the others. Another few meters of spike slid past, and then it slowed to a stop and stayed there, buried in the heart of the Jelly ship—a seeming impossibility.
Kira struggled to understand what she was seeing. Then she realized: the nightmares had rammed them. She was seeing the prow of one of their ships.
The radio crackled in her ear as she grabbed Trig’s comatose form. *Kira, you okay?* said Nielsen.
“Yeah, and I’ve got Trig. Don’t wait for me. I’ll find a way around.”
*Roger that. There’s an airlock near the front of the ship. The Wallfish is going to attempt to pick us up there.*
*If they can get close enough,* said Falconi.
Pulling Trig behind her, Kira turned around and kicked back down the corridor toward the nearest shell-like doorway. Ahead of her, the noises of fighting increased in volume.
“Dammit,” she muttered.
The door split open, and she hurried past. She raced through room after room, shying away from any hint of the nightmares.
In a low, round passageway, she surprised one of the Jelly lobsters. It clicked its claws at her, alarmed, and then said: [[Sffarn here: Go that way, Idealis.]] And it pointed toward a door next to the one she’d entered through.
[[Kira here: My thanks.]]
The shell parted to reveal a blob of floating water, now untethered by gravity from the side of the room where it normally rested. Kira didn’t stop to think; she dove into the liquid mass, aiming for the far side.
Tiny mantis-like creatures flitted past her face as she swam. In the back of her mind, she remembered liking their taste. They were … crunchy and good with yrannoc, whatever that was.
She breached the surface of the water. It clung to her face with a wobbling film that distorted her vision. Blinking, she slung a tendril from her hand to the nearest wall and reeled herself over. Once secured, and with Trig’s feet tucked under her arm, she wiped the water off her face.
Tiny droplets flew free as she shook her hand.
For an instant, the situation got the better of her and she found herself incapacitated by fear. Then her gut relaxed and she took another breath.
Stay focused. Surviving long enough to rejoin Falconi and the others was the only thing that mattered at the moment. So far she’d been lucky; she hadn’t run into a single one of the nightmares.
She crawled along the curve of the wall until she found the next doorway and then pulled Trig and herself through it into another dark corridor. “You would have loved this,” she muttered, thinking how interested the kid was in the Jellies, and aliens in general.
Her earpiece crackled. *Kira, we’re at the airlock. Where are you?*
“Getting close, I think,” she said, keeping her voice low.
*Hurry it up. The Wallfish is almost here.*
“Roger. I—”
*Oh shi—* said Falconi, and static filled the line. A second later, the ship tilted around her, and the bulkheads creaked and snapped with alarming violence.
Kira stopped. “What? What is it?… Falconi? Nielsen?” She tried several more times, but neither of them answered.
Dread welled up inside Kira. Cursing under her breath, she tightened her grip on Trig and continued along the corridor, moving even faster than before.
A flicker of motion at the far end of the passage caused her to grab a ridge on the wall and freeze. A mess of jumbled shadows had appeared in the facing intersection, and whatever cast them was moving closer.…
Desperate, Kira looked for a place to hide. The only option was a shallow alcove with a coral-like structure directly across from her in the hall.
She pushed herself over to the alcove and tucked Trig and herself behind the coral. Trig’s stiff, shell-encased body bumped against the bulkhead, and she stiffened, hoping the sound wasn’t loud enough to attract attention.