As they passed through the circular doorway, Kira felt the walls open up. She wished to see what was in front of her, and the Seed answered her wishes. Her vision wavered, and then her view switched from the inside of the shield to that of the surrounding room, as if the xeno had grown eyes on the surface of the shield.
For all she knew, it had.
With her now unobstructed view, Kira saw that the room was some sort of feeding area. That much she recognized from the Soft Blade’s memories. There were troughs along the walls, and alcoves too, and tubes and vats and transparent containers full of floating creatures waiting to be eaten. In one the pfennic that tasted like copper. In another the nwor with its many legs, soft and savory and such a delight to hunt.…
Amid the alcoves were several more doors, clamped shut. Itari didn’t select any of them. Instead, the Jelly jetted toward a patch on the floor, tentacles streaming behind it. [[Itari here: This way.]]
The alien tapped several small circular ridges on the floor, and a disk-shaped cover slid open with an audible thunk to reveal a glowing red tube a meter across.
[[Itari here: Swim this way.]] And the Jelly dove into the narrow shaft, disappearing from view.
“Shit,” said Kira. She wished the alien had let her retake the lead. “Everyone off. We won’t fit otherwise.”
The crew let go of the ribs and spars she’d made, and she began to reshape the Seed in order to enter the drop tube.
Before she could finish, a bolt of not-pain shot through her side. Then another on the shield, this one from a different angle, and detonations sounded as weapons fired. Kira flinched; the whole suit flinched, pulling back her quickly eroding barrier with it.
The doors between the alcoves disgorged a swarm of buzzing orbs. Drones. Dozens of them, armed with blasters, slug throwers, and cutters. As they converged on her, their mandibles sparked with electricity, and their manipulators snipped and snacked like scissors eager to cut her flesh.
Boom! The blast from Falconi’s grenade launcher hit her with concussive force. A flash of lightning appeared on the far side of the room, and chunks of Jelly machinery bounced against the wall. The rest of the crew were firing also, lasers and slug throwers alike.
One of Hwa-jung’s drones exploded.
Kira stabbed with a thicket of jabbing thorns: one for each of the buzzing orbs. But fast as the Soft Blade was, the orbs were faster. They dodged, jetting at odd, unpredictable angles that her eye couldn’t follow. Flesh was no match for the speed or precision of a machine, not even the flesh of her symbiont.
Over the comms, someone shouted in pain.
Kira shouted herself, wishing she could shove the drones away. “Yah!” And the Soft Blade sent a burst of electricity coursing across its outer surface, including her shield. Five of the alien drones sparked and fell away, their manipulators curling into tiny fists. The electricity was welcome, if unexpected. But it wasn’t enough to stop the onslaught.
The drones seemed to be concentrating most of their fire on her. Kira doubted they could kill her, but the crew was another matter. She couldn’t destroy the drones fast enough to protect Falconi or the others.
So she did the only other thing she could: in her mind, she imagined a hollow sphere encasing her and the crew.
The Soft Blade obeyed, creating a perfectly round bubble around them.
*What the hell?!* Sparrow exclaimed. The barrels of her blasters were glowing red-hot.
The bubble was thin, though. Too thin. Already Kira could feel a dozen or more hotspots forming on the surface as the drones outside fired at it. Unlike before, she couldn’t see out, couldn’t pinpoint the location of the orbs in order to destroy them. Half a meter above her head, a jet of sparks punched through the black membrane.
A fist-sized chunk of the sphere flew free, and for an instant, a blinding, crucible-like light flooded the interior. Then the Soft Blade flowed over the hole, covering it again.
Kira didn’t know what to do. In desperation, she prepared to separate herself from the bubble and launch herself forth to draw the fire away from the crew. Maybe then she could clear out the orbs. It would be a near-suicidal action, though. The Jellies couldn’t be far behind their machines.…
“Stay here,” she started to say to Falconi, and then a sonic blast hit them. A keening shriek that made Kira’s teeth vibrate so hard she feared they would crack before the shrilling, throbbing, rending assault.
6.
The spikes of heat vanished outside the bubble, as did the barrage of laser pulses and projectiles. Bewildered, Kira opened a portal to look out (making sure her head was protected behind a thick layer of her second flesh).
Throughout the room, the orbs spun and darted in random directions. They seemed dazed by the noise; their weapons fired in intermittent bursts at the walls, floor, and ceiling, and their manipulators waved, weak and aimless.
Over the tubes and troughs, Kira saw the two Entropists flying toward her, their robes folded with origami precision. In their hands glimmered light, and in front of them rode a shimmering shockwave of compressed air. From it emanated the horrible shriek. Lasers struck the shockwave, and she saw how it refracted the blasts of energy away from the Entropists. Slugs had no more success; they exploded with sparks of molten metal a meter and a half from Jorrus and Veera.
Kira didn’t understand, but she didn’t stop to figure it out. She broke her shape and swung at the nearest drone and caught the middle of its bone-like casing. Without hesitation, she tore the machine apart.
*Kira!* Falconi shouted. *Can’t shoot! Get out of the—*
She increased the size of the bubble opening.
Hwa-jung’s service drones flew up around her, forming a mechanical halo that flashed with the harsh glare of arc welders—darting and dashing at any of the orbs that came close. Several times they saved her from taking a bolt that might have distracted her.
*Some help for you,* the machine boss said.
The next few seconds were a blur of electrical discharges, jabbing spikes from the Soft Blade, and laser blasts. Sparrow and Falconi fired over her shoulders, and together, they accounted for almost as many drones as Kira.
The Entropists proved themselves surprisingly capable in the skirmish, despite the fact that they wore no armor. Their robes were more than robes, and they seemed to have blasters of some sort concealed upon them. Kira wasn’t sure. But they were able to fight (and more importantly kill) their enemies, and for that, she was grateful.
When the last of the orbs was disabled, Kira paused to catch her breath. Even with the Soft Blade working to provide her with air, it was difficult to get enough. And with the mask over her face and the increased mass of the xeno surrounding her, she felt so hot it was making her light-headed.
She collapsed the obsidian-black bubble and turned to look at the crew, dreading what she might see.
Hwa-jung was pressing a hand against the left side of her hip. Blood and medifoam oozed between her fingers. Her moon-shaped face was set in a hard expression, nostrils flared, lips pressed white. Vishal was already floating next to her, unsealing a field dressing taken from his medical case. The doctor looked like he’d been hit also; a white dot of medifoam adorned one of his shoulders. Sparrow appeared unscathed, but a laser blast had fused the left elbow joint on Falconi’s exo, freezing it in a half-bent position.