“That’s the idea.”
*Good woman. I’m sending four cruisers your way, but they won’t get there until after you make contact with the Maw. If you succeed, they’ll help mop up whatever remains, as well as provide aid and assistance, if needed.*
If needed. It probably wouldn’t be, though.
“Admiral Klein, if you don’t mind, I have a favor to ask.”
*Name it.*
“If any of the Seventh make it back, can you see to it that charges are dropped against the crew of the Wallfish?”
*I can’t guarantee anything, Navárez, but I’ll put in a good word for them on our packet ship going out. Based off what you’ve done here at Cordova, I think their unlicensed departure from Orsted Station can be overlooked.”
“Thank you.”
An explosion sounded over the line, and Klein said, *Have to go. Good luck, Navárez. Over and out.*
“Roger that.”
Then Kira’s earpiece fell silent, and for the next while no one spoke to her. Part of her was tempted to ask for Falconi or Gregorovich, but she refrained. As much as she would have liked to talk with them—with anyone—she needed to concentrate.
3.
The fourteen minutes passed with disconcerting speed. Behind her, Kira watched as flashes continued to mark the ongoing fight between the nightmares and the humans and Jellies. The defending fleets were clustered around R1’s two moons, using the rocky planetoids for cover as they tried without success to fend off the masses of crimson ships.
The Maw came into view well before the end of the fourteen minutes: first as a dull red star moving against the velvet backdrop of space. Then swelling into a knotted, dendrical tumor that writhed along the edges with a forest of arms, legs, and tentacles that was so dense, it appeared like cilia. Many of the individual limbs were larger than the whole of Ctein. They stretched for dozens, sometimes hundreds of meters—great trunks of misshapen meat that should have crushed themselves under their own mass. And buried among them, like a festering sore gaping wide, was the mouth of the Maw: a jagged slit of skin pulled tight around a ridged beak, which, when parted, revealed row after row of crooked teeth—bone-white and uncomfortably human—leading into a pulsing, gagging redness.
The Maw was more like an island of flesh floating through space than it was an actual vessel. A mountain of pain and misplaced growth packed full of quivering rage.
Kira shrank within herself as she stared at the abomination her actions had given birth to. Why had she ever thought she could kill the Maw? Compared to it, even the Casaba-Howitzer seemed paltry, insufficient.
But there was no turning back now. Her course was set; she and the Maw were going to collide, and nothing in the whole wide universe was going to change that.
She felt incredibly small and frightened. Here was her doom, and there was no escaping it. “Fuck,” she whispered, and shivered so hard her legs cramped.
Then, loud enough for the earpiece to pick up, she said, “Wish me luck.”
After a few seconds of light-delay, Sparrow said, *Go kick its ass, chica.*
*Fighting!* said Hwa-jung.
*You can do this,* said Nielsen.
*I’m praying for you, Ms. Kira,* said Vishal.
*Be a most troublesome thorn in its side, O Aggravating Meatsack,* said Gregorovich.
*Just because it’s big doesn’t mean you can’t kill it,* said Falconi. *Hit the right spot and it’s lights out.… We’re all rooting for you, Kira. Good luck.*
“Thanks,” said Kira, and she meant it with every atom of her being.
What Falconi had said was true, and it had been Kira’s plan from the beginning. If she just blasted off a piece of the Maw, it would do nothing to stop the creature. Like the Seed, it could regenerate, seemingly without end. No, the only sure way to stop the Maw would be to destroy its ruling intelligence—the unholy union of Carr’s wounded body and that of the Jelly Qwon. In a misguided attempt to heal them, the xeno had mashed their two brains together, stitching them into a malformed whole. If she could get to that whole—get to that lump of tormented grey matter—Kira thought she’d have a good chance of righting her wrong and ending the Maw.
It wouldn’t be easy, though. It surely wouldn’t.
“Thule guide me,” she whispered, collapsing the solar sails so the Seed formed a small, hard shell around her and the missile.
The hellish fleshscape of the Maw loomed before her. Kira had no idea where exactly the brain she sought would be located, but she guessed it would be near the center of the overgrown meat. She might be wrong, but she couldn’t think of a better place to strike. It was a gamble she’d have to take.
Several of the largest tentacles lifted from the body of the Maw and reached toward her with what seemed like ponderous slowness but in actuality, given their size, was terrifying speed.
“Shit!”
Kira willed herself into a course correction, altering her trajectory into a sideways slew that dropped her between the tentacles. Thousands of smaller limbs waved beneath her, grasping in a futile attempt to catch hold of her.
If they did, Kira knew they would tear her apart, despite the best efforts of the Seed to keep her safe.
A cloud of nearscent wafted over her, and she nearly vomited as she smelled death and decay and a cruel, eager desire to feast upon her flesh.
Anger spiked within her. There was no fucking way she was going to let this overgrown malignancy have its way and eat her. Not without giving it a severe case of indigestion.
Ahead of her, black tendrils began to sprout like hair from the surface of the Maw, similar to the tendrils from the Seed. Only these were thick as tree trunks and tipped with razor-sharp tines.
Left! Kira thought, and with a burst of thrusters, the xeno wrenched her down and to the side, away from the lashing tendrils.
She was nearing the center of the Maw. Just a few more seconds …
Next to her, the giant black beak surged upward out of the forest of thrashing limbs and the hills of oozing meat, biting, clacking, and—she felt sure—roaring its silent frustration. Clouds of frozen spittle spewed from within the open mouth.
Kira yelped, and the Seed provided her with one last burst of speed as she bored straight toward the heaving, bleeding, pustulent surface of the Maw. “Chew on this!” she muttered from between clenched teeth.
But in the last moment before she struck, her thought was more prayer than defiance: Please. Please let her plan work. Please could she atone for her sin and stop the Maw. Please could her life have not been in vain. Please might her friends survive.
Please.
4.
The instant Seed touched Maw, a raging howl filled Kira’s mind. It was louder than any hurricane, louder than any rocket engine—loud enough that it gave her pains throughout her skull.
The force of the collision was greater than any emergency burn she’d experienced. Her vision flashed red, and her joints cried out as the bones pressed hard against one another, squeezing fluids, tendons, and cartilage.
How deep the impact carried her and the Casaba-Howitzer, Kira didn’t know, but she knew it wasn’t deep enough. She needed to be near the hidden core of the Maw before detonating the missile.