A season of feasting followed. The graspers fought back, but they were unprepared, and they were too slow to replace their fallen. The Maw had no such difficulty. Each system it struck, it quickly established a permanent foothold and began the process of spreading across every available planet.
Progress brought their servants closer to the space of the two-forms. The flesh of the Maw spanned seven systems now, and it felt confident in its strength. So it sent its minions against the two-forms, to drive them back and begin the process of conversion.
And then, when least expected, they had heard a cry in the dark: Stop it! And they recognized the signal and the voice as well. The first belonged to the makers of the flesh, now long vanished, and the second to her, Kira Navárez.
Again she saw her face contort with fear and anger as she fired the pistol.…
The Maw roared, and they told their servants: Find the forgotten flesh! Break it! Smash it! EAT IT!
3.
*Kira … Where are you?… Kira?*
Kira screamed as she returned to herself.
The humanoid nightmare still had the tentacle wrapped around her arm, but there was more to it than that. Black threads joined the surface of the Soft Blade to the flesh of the nightmare, and she could feel the creature’s consciousness pressing against her, seeking to blot her out. The nightmare’s skin was eating into her own as it assimilated the Soft Blade. It wasn’t a process she could stop by force of will; the xeno didn’t recognize the nightmare as an enemy. Rather, it seemed to want to assimilate with the creature’s broken flesh, to become one again with its lost parts.
If she delayed, Kira knew she would die. Or least be converted into something she abhorred.
She tried to yank her arm away from the humanoid, and they spun end over end until they smacked into the deck. The flesh of the nightmare was still melting into her.
“Give up,” said the monster, mandibles clicking. “You cannot win. All will be flesssh for the mouth of many. Join usssss and be eaten.”
“No!” said Kira. She willed the Soft Blade outward, and it responded with a thousand jutting spikes, piercing the nightmare through and through. The creature shrieked and writhed, but it did not die. Then Kira felt the spikes impaling its body dissolve and flow into the nightmare, leaving the Soft Blade thinner, smaller than before.
The tentacle had sunk deep into her arm; only the top of it was visible above the churning surface of the Soft Blade.
No! She refused to die like this. Flesh was expendable. Consciousness wasn’t.
Kira formed the suit on her left arm into a blade, and—with a yell of desperation—she cut twice.
Once through her right arm, severing it at the elbow.
Once through the nightmare, slicing it in two at the waist.
Blood fountained from the stump of her arm, but only for an instant. Then the Soft Blade closed over the raw end of the wound.
It should have hurt, but whether from adrenaline or the xeno, it didn’t.
The two halves of the nightmare flew to opposite ends of the corridor. And still the creature didn’t die; the torso half continued to move its arms and head and chitter with its mandibles, while the lower half kicked as if trying to run. Even as she watched, black tendrils emerged from the exposed surfaces of its insides, reaching and searching in an attempt to pull themselves back together.
Kira knew she was outmatched.
She looked for the alcove: there. She kicked herself over to it, grabbed Trig’s cocoon with her one hand, and then willed the Soft Blade to propel them back along the corridor, in the direction they’d been headed originally.
As they neared the end of the passage, she glanced over her shoulder at the nightmare. The two parts of the creature’s body were nearly rejoined. Then she saw the torso half lift its remaining tentacle and point the same small device at her as before.
She tried to duck her head behind her arm. Too slow.
…
…
…
A bell-like ringing filled her ears as she regained awareness. At first, she couldn’t remember who she was or where she was. She gaped at the blue-lit walls as they drifted past, trying to understand, for she was convinced something was wrong. Terribly wrong.
Her breath rushed in, and with it memory. Knowledge. Fear.
The nightmare had shot her in the head. Kira could feel a dull throb in her skull, and her neck spasmed with jolts of pain. The creature was still at the other end of the corridor, still working to rejoin its severed halves.
Boom! It fired at her again, but this time the bullet glanced off her shoulder, deflected by the hardened surface of the Soft Blade.
Kira didn’t wait to see more. Still dazed, she grabbed the wall, pulled herself and Trig around the corner at the end of the corridor, breaking the line of sight with the nightmare.
As she moved through the ship, Kira felt disconnected from reality, as if everything were happening to someone else. Sounds made little sense, and she saw rainbow-colored halos around lights.
Must have a concussion, she thought.
The things she had seen from the nightmare … They couldn’t be, and yet she knew they were. Dr. Carr and the Jelly, joined together into an abomination by the fragments of the Soft Blade blasted off her. If only she hadn’t been so consumed by her emotions during their confrontation. If only she had listened to Carr’s pleading. If only she had avoided shooting the oxygen line.… She was the mother of the Corrupted. Her actions had led to their creation, and their sins were hers. All those dead: Jellies, humans, and so many innocent life-forms on distant planets—her heart ached to think of it.
She was barely conscious of where she was going. The Soft Blade seemed to decide for her: left here, right there.…
A voice drew her from her haze: “Kira! Kira, over here! Where—”
She looked up to see Falconi hanging before her, a fierce expression on his face. The Jelly, Itari, was with him, weapons aimed at the doorway. Behind them was a large, jagged hole in the hull, big enough for a car to pass through. The dark of space showed through it, and hanging in the dark, like a gleaming gem, the Wallfish, over a hundred meters away.
With a start, Kira realized they were in vacuum. Somehow that had happened without her noticing.
“… your arm! Where—”
She shook her head, unable to find the words.
Falconi seemed to understand. He grabbed her by the waist and pulled her and Trig toward the opening in the hull. “You have to jump. They can’t get any closer. Can you—”
On the side of the Wallfish, Kira saw the airlock was open. In it, several figures moved: Nielsen and some of the Marines.
Kira nodded, and Falconi released her. She gathered her strength and then leaped into the void.
For the length of a breath, she floated in silence.
The Soft Blade adjusted her course by a few centimeters, and she flew straight into the Wallfish airlock. A Marine caught her, stopped her momentum.
Falconi followed a moment later, bringing Trig with him. The Jelly came also, somewhat to Kira’s surprise, and crowded its tentacled bulk into the airlock.
The instant the outer door closed, Falconi said, “Hit it!”
Gregorovich’s whispering voice answered, “Aye-aye, Captain. Currently hitting it.”