A shower of sparks and shrapnel knocked Falconi end over end.
12.
With Falconi no longer blocking her view, Kira saw one of the Jellies’ drones flitting away from the doorway, trailing a comet-tail of protective smoke. Enraged, she sent a jumble of fibers streaking across the floor and the ceiling until they bracketed the drone. Then she stabbed, and the drone whined as a half-dozen spines impaled it from either side.
She took a shaky breath. If not for Falconi, the shots might have taken her head off.…
Sparrow caught the back of Falconi’s armor and pulled him close. The captain’s right arm was smashed all to hell; it reminded Kira of a nut cracked to expose the meat within. She found it hard to look at. A sudden determination came over her: she wasn’t going to lose anyone else. Not again.
Falconi was panting but still calm; his implants were blocking most of the pain, she guessed. White foam sprayed out of the broken edges of the armor, stopping the bleeding and setting his arm in an instant cast.
*Shit,* he said.
“Can you move?” Kira asked. Another tremor shook the Hierophant. She ignored it.
Falconi’s exo twitched as he checked. *I can still use my left arm, but jets are out.*
“Dammit.” That made four wounded and one dead. Kira glanced between him, Sparrow, and Itari. “Back. Hurry. You have to go back with the others.”
Behind his visor, Falconi set his teeth and shook his head. *No chance in hell. We’re not leaving you alone.*
“Hey.” Kira grabbed him and pressed her forehead against his helmet. His blue eyes were only centimeters away, separated by the curved dome of clearest sapphire. “I have the Soft Blade. You’re just going to get yourself killed if you stay.” Her other thought remained unspoken: with only herself to worry about, she could let loose with the Soft Blade without fear of hurting or killing them.
A handful of breaths, and then Falconi relented. *Fuck. Alright. Sparrow, you too. All of us.*
The woman shook her head. *I’m not letting Kira—*
*That’s an order!*
*Fuck!* But Sparrow started to jet back toward the room they’d just left. Falconi followed close behind, along with Itari.
“Hurry!” said Kira, shooing them forward. “Go, go, go!”
With her urging them on, they quickly returned to the dome she’d assembled. It was the work of seconds for Kira to peel open a Jelly-sized hole in the shell. Inside, Hwa-jung had a blaster trained on the opening.
*You watch yourself,* Falconi said as he prepared to enter.
Kira hugged him as best she could through the armor. “Don’t keep the scars from this, yeah? Promise me that.”
* … You’re going to make it, Kira.*
“Of course I am.”
*Enough,* said Sparrow. *You gotta move, and now!*
[[Itari here: Idealis—]]
[[Kira here: Three down and forward: I know. That’s where Ctein is. Just make sure my co-forms stay safe.]]
A hesitation, and then: [[Itari here: I promise.]]
Then Kira sealed them into the dome. And as they vanished from view, Falconi sent her one last message:
*You can do this. Don’t forget who you are.*
13.
Kira pressed her lips together. If only it were that easy. Letting the xeno run rampant would be the safest, easiest way to kill Ctein, but she would risk losing herself and, possibly, creating another Maw. And that was a risk she wasn’t willing to take.
Somehow she had to retain control over the xeno, whatever the cost. Still, she could do more with it than she had, which would require entrusting the Seed with a certain amount of autonomy.
That scared her. Terrified her even. But it was the balancing act that was needed—a high-wire act she couldn’t afford to slip and fall from even once.
She rushed back to the room where the pillbugs had been. The air was so thick with gore, it was difficult to see. She pulled the xeno in close around her, compacting it into a dense cylinder of material. Then she sent forth tendrils and grabbed the deck and bored her way through it into a transport shaft.
She was alone now. She and the Seed, and a ship of angry Jellies surrounding them, and the great and mighty Ctein ahead.
The corner of Kira’s mouth twitched. If through some miracle they survived—if the human race survived—there were going to be some interesting xenobiology courses taught about her experiences. She just wished she’d be there to see them.
She’d cut her way halfway through the floor of the shaft when the Hierophant tilted like an unhinged seesaw. The walls rattled, and Kira heard an alarming number of pops and hisses. The lights went out, only to be replaced by emergency backups, dim and red. A half-dozen fingers of high-pressure vapor erupted from the walls, marking the locations of ruptured pressure lines.
Up and down the length of the shaft, Kira saw jagged holes in the paneling—holes that hadn’t been there before. Some were no bigger than a fingernail; others were the size of her head.
The receiver in her ear crackled. * … copy. I repeat, meatbag, do you read me?*
“Gregorovich?!” she said, hardly believing.
*Indeed. You need to hurry, meatbag. The nightmares are closing in. One of them just took out a Jelly ship. The Hierophant got hit by the debris. It seems to have disrupted their jamming.*
“One of our Jellies?”
*Fortunately, no.*
She resumed digging into the floor below her. “The others are hunkered down one deck back. Any chance you can help them return to the Wallfish?”
*We are already in close consultation,* said Gregorovich. *Options are being discussed, plans being outlined, contingencies being considered.*
Kira grunted as she tore loose a support beam. A slug ricocheted off her side from farther down the transport shaft; she ignored it. “’K. Let me know if they get off the ship.”
*Affirmative. Give ’em hell, Varunastra.*
“Roger that,” she said from between gritted teeth. “Giving ’em hell.”
More slugs, laser blasts, and projectiles began to slam into her as a seething pool of Jellies gathered at the end of the shaft. The sides of the Soft Blade were thick enough that Kira paid them no mind. She’d cannibalized enough of her immediate surroundings to make her effectively immune to small-arms fire. The Jellies would have to bring in something a lot bigger if they wanted to hurt her.
The thought gave her a measure of satisfaction.
Down through the floor of the shaft, down through a room that glowed dull red and was filled with transparent tubing sloshing with water and large enough for the Jellies to swim through, and then down through the floor of the room and into the final deck. Finally. Kira bared her teeth. Ctein was close now: just a short way ahead of her.
The level she’d arrived on was dark purple, and there were patterned lines on the walls that reminded her of the designs from Nidus. Echoes of the Vanished, repurposed by the graspers who neither knew nor cared for the significance of the artifacts they’d found.