CHAPTER VIII

The inner door to the airlock rolled open. Sparrow was standing there with a rifle fitted to her shoulder, aiming it toward the Jelly at the back of the airlock. Her hair hung flat and heavy in the high-g of the Wallfish’s burn.

“What’s that thing doing here, Captain? ” she said. “You want I should remove it? ”

The Marines scooted back from the Jelly while keeping their own weapons trained on it. A sudden tenseness filled the air. “Falconi? ” said Hawes.

“The Jelly was helping us, ” said Falconi, getting to his feet. It took him noticeable effort.

[[Itari here: Strike Leader Wrnakkr ordered me to guard you, so I will guard you. ]]

Kira translated, and Falconi said, “Fine. But he stays here until we get shit sorted out. Not going to have him wandering around the ship. You tell him that. ”

“It, ” said Kira. “Not him. ”

Falconi grunted. “It. Whatever. ” He slung his grenade launcher across his back and lurched out of the airlock. “I’ll be in Control. ”

“Roger that, ” said Nielsen, her voice muffled as she pulled off the helmet of her power armor.

The captain staggered down the corridor as fast as he could despite the ship’s thrust, and Sparrow followed close behind. “Glad you made it, knuckleheads! ” she shouted over her shoulder.

Kira conveyed Falconi’s orders to the Jelly. It formed a nest with its tentacles and settled down at the end of the airlock. [[Itari here: I will wait. ]]

[[Kira here: Do you need help with your injuries? ]]

Nearscent of negation reached her. [[Itari here: This form will heal on its own. Help is not required. ]] And Kira saw that the crack in the Jelly’s carapace was already crusted over with a hard, brown substance.

As Kira moved out of the airlock, she passed by Nielsen. “Your arm! ” said the first officer.

Kira shrugged. She was still in so much shock over what she’d learned about the nightmares that the loss didn’t seem very important. And yet she avoided looking at the absence below her elbow.

The Entropists were there, but of their whole expedition, only seven of the Marines had survived.

“Koyich? Nishu? ” she said to Hawes.

The lieutenant shook his head while tending to Moros, who had a piece of humerus sticking through his skinsuit. Despite her own distress, Kira felt a pang of sorrow for the lost men.

Vishal came hurrying up to the airlock, bag in hand. His face was lined and streaked with sweat. He gave Trig’s body a worried glance and then said, “Ms. Nielsen! Ms. Kira! We thought for sure we’d lost you. It’s good to see you. ”

“You too, Vishal, ” Nielsen said, stepping out of her armor. “When you get a chance, we’ll need some rad-pills. ”

The doctor bobbed his head. “Right here, Ms. Nielsen. ” He handed a blister pack to the first officer, and then held out another to Kira.

She tried to accept with her missing hand. The doctor’s eyes widened as he noticed. “Ms. Kira! ”

“It’s fine, ” she said, and snatched up the pills with her other hand. It most definitely wasn’t.

Vishal continued to stare after her as she left the airlock.

Once out of sight, she stopped in the corridor and downed the pills. They stuck in her throat for an unpleasant moment. After, she just stood there. She didn’t know what she wanted to do, and for a time, her brain refused to provide an answer.

Then, she said, “Gregorovich, what’s happening? ”

“Rather busy at the moment, ” the ship mind answered in an unusually serious voice. “Sorry, O Spiky Meatbag. ”

Kira nodded and started to trudge toward Control, each weighted step jarring her heels.

Falconi was hunched over the central display along with Sparrow. In the holo, a window displayed the feed from a skinsuit headcam of someone moving about on the outside of the Wallfish’s hull.

Hwa-jung’s voice sounded through the comms: “—checking the welds. I promise. Five minutes, no more, Captain. ”

“No more, ” he said. “Falconi out. ” He touched a button, and the holo switched to a map of the system, with all the ships marked for easy viewing.

As Kira sank into the welcome relief of a padded crash chair, Sparrow glanced at her. The woman’s eyes widened as she noticed what she hadn’t before. “Shit, Kira. What happened to your—”

“Not now, ” said Falconi. “Storytime later. ”

Sparrow bit back her questions, but Kira could feel the weight of her gaze.

The Jellies and the nightmares were still skirmishing near and around Nidus. But it was a confused fight. The three remaining ships that belonged to the friendly Jellies—including the one carrying Tschetter—were taking potshots at both the nightmares and their own kind. Two Jelly vessels and one of the nightmares had taken off from the planet and were shooting at any and all. Kira suspected the Seeker was in control of them. Likewise, the rest of the nightmares were fighting everyone but themselves.

As one of the Jellies’ ships—fortunately, not a friendly—exploded in a nuclear flare, Sparrow winced. “What a clusterfuck, ” she said.

At first Kira thought the Wallfish had been lucky enough to escape pursuit, but then she spotted the trajectories plotted from two of the nightmares: intercept courses. The long, angular ships (they looked like bundles of enormous femurs bound together with strips of exposed muscle) were on the opposite side of the planet, but they were accelerating at the same insane, cell-destroying g’s the other nightmares had employed. At the current rate, they’d be in range within fourteen minutes.

Or maybe not.

Approaching from the near asteroid belt was the Darmstadt, trailing threads of coolant from its damaged radiators. Kira checked the numbers; the cruiser would just barely cross paths with the nightmares before they shot past. If the nightmares piled on another quarter g of thrust, the UMC would be far too slow.

The comms crackled, and Akawe’s voice sounded: “Captain Falconi, do you read? ”

“I read. ”

“We can buy you some time here, I think. Maybe enough for you to get to the Markov Limit. ”

Falconi gripped the edge of the table, the tips of his fingers turning white from the force. “What about you, Captain? ”

A chuckle from Akawe surprised Kira. “We’ll follow if we can, but all that matters is that someone lets Command know about the offer from Tschetter’s Jellies, and right now the Wallfish has the best shot of escaping the system. I know you’re a civvy, Falconi—I can’t order you to do jack shit—but it doesn’t get more important than this. ”

“We’ll get the message back to the League, ” said Falconi. Then, after a moment’s pause, “You have my word, Captain. ”

A crackle of static and then: “I’ll hold you to that, Captain. … Stand by for a light show. Over. ”

“What are they planning? ” said Kira. “They can’t outmaneuver the nightmares. ”

Sparrow wet her lips, her gaze fixed on the holo. “No. But maybe Akawe can hit them hard and fast enough to take them off our tail. Depends on how many missiles the Darmstadt has left. ”

Kira and the others were still sitting, waiting and watching, when Hwa-jung lumbered in through the doorway. Falconi gave her a nod. “Problem fixed? ”

Hwa-jung surprised Kira by bowing past parallel. “It was my fault. The repair I made in Sixty-One Cygni, I made in anger. The work was bad. I am sorry. You should find a better machine boss to work for you. ”

Falconi walked over, put his hands on Hwa-jung’s shoulders, and raised her back into a standing position. “Nonsense, ” he said, voice unexpectedly gentle. “Just don’t let it happen again. ”

After a moment, Hwa-jung ducked her head. Tears filled her eyes. “I will not. I promise. ”

“That’s all I ask, ” said Falconi. “And if—”

“Shit, ” said Sparrow in a subdued tone, pointing at the holo.

The nightmares had increased their thrust. The Darmstadt was going to fall short by a good margin. Certainly more than the effective range of the cruiser’s main lasers.

“Now what? ” Kira asked. She felt numb from the rolling series of catastrophes. What else could go wrong at this point? Didn’t matter. Just deal with it. If the nightmares docked with the Wallfish, she might be able to fight off some of the invaders, but if there were more creatures like the one that had grabbed her on the Jelly ship, then she would be lost. They would all be lost.

“We set up a killing zone in the main shaft, ” said Falconi. “Funnel the nightmares into there and hit ’em from every side. ”

“Assuming they don’t just blow us up, ” said Sparrow.

“No, ” said Hwa-jung, motioning toward Kira. “They want her. ”

“They do, ” Falconi agreed. “We can use that to our advantage. ”

“Bait, ” said Kira.

“Exactly. ”

“Then—”

A bloom of dazzling white in the center of the holo interrupted her and caused them all to stop and stare.

Both nightmare ships had exploded, leaving nothing but an expanding cloud of vapor.

“Gregorovich, ” said Falconi. “What just happened? ”

The ship mind said, “Casaba-Howitzers. Three of them. ”

The image in the holo ran in reverse, and they saw the explosions collapse back into the nightmares’ ships and—just before—three needles of light flickering in a scattered line some tens of thousands of klicks away.

“How? ” said Kira, confused. “The Darmstadt isn’t in range. ”

Sparrow seemed about to answer when the comm line crackled again and Akawe came on. “There’s the light show, folks, ” he said, sounding grimly amused. “We dropped a few RD Fifty-Twos on approach to Nidus. Something new we’ve been playing with. Hydrogen-cooled Casaba-Howitzers. Makes ’em nearly impossible to spot. In a pinch, they work pretty well as mines. We just had to force the nightmares into range. Stupid fucks didn’t even realize they were flying into a trap. We’re changing course now. Going to do our best to keep the rest of these hostiles off your backs. Just keep up your burn and don’t stop for anything. Over. ”

“Roger that, ” said Falconi. “… And thank you, Captain. We owe you one. Over. ”

“There’ll be drinks to go around when this is done, Captain. Over, ” said Akawe.

As the line went dead, Sparrow said, “I’d heard about the RD Fifty-Twos. Never got to play with them, though. ”

Falconi leaned back from the holo. He ran his hands through his bristly hair, scrubbing at his scalp with the tips of his fingers, and then said, “Okay. We’ve got some breathing room. Not much, but a little. ”

“How long until we can jump out? ” Kira asked.

“At our current two g’s of thrust, ” whispered Gregorovich, “we shall gain the freedom to depart this hallowed graveyard in exactly twenty-five hours. ”

That’s too long. Kira didn’t have to say it; she could see the others were thinking it as well. The nightmares and the Jellies had only taken a few hours to reach Nidus after dropping out of FTL. If more of them decided to pursue the Wallfish, they’d have no trouble overtaking it.

“Gregorovich, ” said Falconi, “any chance of a solar flare? ”

Smart. Like all red dwarfs, Bughunt would be prone to high variability, which meant enormous and unpredictable solar flares. A large enough outburst would disrupt the magnetic fields used in the exhaust nozzles of their fusion drives and keep the Jellies or the nightmares from overtaking the Wallfish. Assuming they hadn’t found an effective way to shield themselves.

“None at the moment, ” said Gregorovich.

“Dammit, ” Falconi muttered.

“We’ll just have to hope Akawe and Tschetter’s Jellies can keep everyone off our tail, ” said Sparrow.

Falconi looked like he’d just bitten down on a rock. “I don’t like it. I really don’t like it. If even one of those assholes comes after us, we’re going to be in a world of trouble. ”

Sparrow shrugged. “Not sure what we can do about it, Captain. The Wallfish ain’t like a horse. She won’t go any faster if you hit her. ”

A thought occurred to Kira: the malformed corruption that was the nightmares had been able to make use of the Jelly tech, so … why couldn’t they?

The idea was so outlandish, she nearly dismissed it. Only because of the desperate nature of their circumstances did she say, “What about the Jelly, Itari? ”

“What about it? ” said Falconi.

“Maybe it could help us. ”

Hwa-jung’s eyes narrowed, and she sounded outright hostile as she said, “How do you mean? ”

“I’m not sure, ” said Kira. “But maybe it can tweak our Markov Drive so we can jump to FTL sooner. ”

Hwa-jung cursed. “You want to let that thing tinker with the Wallfish? Gah! ”

“It’s worth a try, ” said Sparrow, looking at Falconi.

He grimaced. “Can’t say I like it, but if the Jelly can help us, we have to give it a shot. ”

Hwa-jung looked profoundly unhappy. “No, no, no, ” she muttered. Then, louder: “You do not know what it could do. It could break every system in the ship. It could blow us up. No! The Jelly doesn’t know our computers or our—”

“So you’ll help it, ” Falconi said in a gentle tone. “We’re dead if we can’t get out of this system, Hwa-jung. Anything that can help us is worth trying at this point. ”

The machine boss scowled and rubbed her hands together again and again. Then she grunted and got back to her feet. “Okay. But if the Jelly does anything to hurt the Wallfish, I will tear it apart. ”

Falconi smiled slightly. “I’d expect nothing less. Gregorovich, you keep an eye on things also. ”

“Always, ” whispered the ship mind.

Then Falconi shifted his gaze. “Kira, you’re the only one who can talk with the Jelly. Go see if it thinks it can help, and if it can, then coordinate between it and Hwa-jung. ”

Kira nodded and pushed herself out of the crash chair, feeling every one of the added kilos from their burn.

The captain was still talking: “Sparrow, you too. Make sure things don’t get out of hand. ”

“Yessir. ”

“When you’re done, take the Jelly back to the airlock. ”

“You’re going to leave it there? ” Sparrow asked.

“Seems like the only semi-secure place for it. Unless you have a better idea? ”

Sparrow shook her head.

“Right. Then get to it. And Kira? When you’re finished, go see the doc and have him look at that arm of yours. ”

“Will do, ” said Kira.

As Kira left Control along with the other two women, Hwa-jung gestured at her arm and said, “Does it hurt? ”

“No, ” said Kira. “Not really. Just feels weird. ”

“What happened? ” said Sparrow

“One of the nightmares grabbed me. The only way I could escape was by cutting myself free. ”

Sparrow winced. “Shit. At least you made it out. ”

“Yeah. ” But privately, Kira wondered if she really had.

Two of the Marines—Tatupoa and another man whose name Kira didn’t know—stood stationed in the airlock antechamber, keeping watch over the Jelly inside. The rest of the Marines had cleared out, leaving behind bandages and bloody streaks on the deck.

The two men were wolfing down rations as Kira and her companions approached. They both looked pale and exhausted, stressed. She recognized the look; it was the same way she felt. After the adrenaline wore off, then came the crash. And she’d crashed hard.

Tatupoa paused with his spork in the air. “You here what to talk with the squid? ”

“Yeah, ” said Kira.

“Gotcha. You need any help, just holler. We’ll be right behind you. ”

Although Kira doubted the Marines could protect her better than the Soft Blade, it made her glad to know they were there, guns at the ready.

Sparrow and Hwa-jung hung back as she went to the airlock and peered through the diamond pressure window. The Jelly, Itari, was still sitting on the floor, resting amid its knotted tentacles. For a moment, apprehension stalled her. Then Kira hit the release button and the airlock’s inner door rolled back.

The scent of the Jelly struck her: a smell that reminded her of brine and spice. It had an almost coppery tang.

The alien spoke first: [[Itari here: How can I help, Idealis? ]]

[[Kira here: We are trying to leave the system, but our ship is not fast enough to outswim the Wranaui or the Corrupted. ]]

[[Itari here: I cannot build you a flow modifier. ]]

[[Kira here: Do you mean a—]] She struggled to find the right word: [[—a weight changer? ]]

[[Itari here: Yes. It lets a ship swim more easily. ]]

[[Kira here: I understand. What about the machine that lets us swim faster than light? ]]

[[Itari here: The Orb of Conversion. ]]

[[Kira here: Yes, that. Can you do anything to make it work better, so we can leave sooner? ]]

The Jelly stirred and seemed to motion at itself with two of its tentacles. [[Itari here: This form is meant for fighting, not building. I do not have the assemblers or the materials needed for this sort of work. ]]

[[Kira here: But do you know how to improve our Orb of Conversion? ]]

The Jelly’s tentacles wrapped over themselves, rubbing and twisting with restless energy. [[Itari here: Yes, but it may not be possible without the proper time, tools, or form. ]]

[[Kira here: Will you try? ]]

… [[Itari here: Since you ask, Idealis, yes. ]]

[[Kira here: Follow me. ]]

“Well? ” said Sparrow as Kira left the airlock.

“Maybe, ” Kira replied. “It’s going to take a stab at helping. Hwa-jung? ”

The machine boss scowled and said, “This way. ”

“Whoa, there, ” said Tatupoa, holding up a tattooed hand. “No one told us but nothing about this. You want to take the Jelly out? ”

Sparrow had to call Falconi then, and Falconi call Hawes, before the Marines would relent and allow them to escort Itari to engineering. Kira kept close to the Jelly, the Soft Blade covered in short, dull spikes in preparation for potentially having to fight and kill.

But Kira didn’t think it would be necessary. Not yet.

Although she was alert and functional, she felt weak, wrung out by the trauma of the day. She needed food. And not just for herself; the Soft Blade needed nourishment as well. The suit felt … thin, as if the energy required for combat and the loss of the material covering her forearm had depleted its reserves.

“Do you have a ration bar on you? ” Kira said to Sparrow.

The woman shook her head. “Sorry. ”

Where’s Trig when you need him? Kira winced at the thought. No matter; she would wait. She wasn’t about to pass out from hunger, and food—or rather the lack thereof—was far from the top of her priority list.

Engineering was a cramped room packed full of displays. The walls, floors, and ceiling were painted with the same flat grey Kira remembered from the Extenuating Circumstances. In contrast, every pipe, wire, valve, and handle was a different color: bright reds and greens and blues and even a tangerine orange, each of them distinct and impossible to confuse. Heavy studs of oversized braille marked the objects so they could be identified in the dark and while wearing a skinsuit.

The floor looked cleaner than the galley counter. Yet the air was thick with heat and moisture, and laden with the unpleasant tang of lubricants, cleaners, and ozone. It left the taste of copper on Kira’s tongue, and she could feel her eyebrows standing on end with static electricity.

“Here, ” said Hwa-jung, leading the way to the back of the room, where one half of a large, black sphere, over a meter across, protruded: the Wallfish’s Markov Drive.

The quarter hour that followed was a frustration of failed translations for Kira. The Jelly kept using technical terms that she didn’t understand and couldn’t render into comprehensible English, and likewise, Hwa-jung kept using technical terms that Kira couldn’t adequately convert into the Jellies’ language. The machine boss toggled a holo-display built into the console next to the Markov Drive and brought up schematics and other visual representations of the machine’s inner workings, which helped some, but—in the end—still failed to fully bridge the language gap.

The math behind a Markov Drive was anything but simple. However, the execution—as Kira understood it—was fairly straightforward. Annihilation of antimatter was used to generate electricity, which in turn was used to power the conditioned EM field that allowed for transition into superluminal space. The lower the energy density of the field, the faster a ship could fly, as less energy equaled higher speeds when going FTL (exactly the opposite of normal space). Efficiencies of scale meant bigger ships had higher top speeds, but in the end, the ultimate limiting factor was one of engineering. Maintaining the low-energy fields was tricky. They were prone to disruption from numerous sources both within and without a ship, which was why a strong gravity well would force a ship back into normal space. Even during interstellar flight, the field had to be adjusted multiple times every nanosecond in order to maintain some semblance of stability.

None of which gave Kira much confidence that Itari could somehow redesign their Markov Drive on the fly, without the proper equipment and without understanding English or the coding of human math. Nevertheless, she hoped, despite what reason told her.

At last, Falconi’s voice came over the comms: “Making any progress? Things aren’t looking too good out there. ”

“Not yet, ” said Hwa-jung. She sounded as annoyed as Kira felt.

“Keep at it, ” said the captain and signed off.

“Maybe—” said Kira, and was interrupted by the Jelly turning away from the holo and crawling over the bulging surface of the Markov Drive.

“No! ” Hwa-jung exclaimed as the alien started to pull at the paneling with one of its tentacles. The machine boss moved across the room with surprising nimbleness and tried to pull the Jelly off the drive, but the creature effortlessly pushed her back with another of its tentacles. “Kira, tell it to stop. If it breaks containment, it’ll kill us all. ”

Sparrow was already lifting her blaster, finger on the trigger, when Kira said, “Stop! Everyone be calm. I’ll ask, but don’t shoot. It knows what it’s doing. ”

The sound of bending metal made her wince as Itari wrenched free the protective shell from around the guts of the Markov Drive.

“It better, ” Sparrow muttered. She lowered her blaster some, but not entirely.

[[Kira here: What are you doing? My shoalmates are worried. ]]

[[Itari here: I need to see the way your Orb of Conversion is built. Do not worry, two-form. I will not destroy us. ]]

Kira translated, but Itari’s assurances did little to alleviate Hwa-jung’s concern. The machine boss stood next to the Jelly, peering over its humped tentacles, scowling, and knotting her hands. “Shi-bal, ” she growled. “Not the … no … ah, you stupid thing, what are you doing? ”

After several minutes of tense standoff, the Jelly withdrew its armlike pincers from the insides of the drive and turned to face Kira.

[[Itari here: I cannot make your Orb work better. ]] The burn of acid hit Kira’s stomach as the Jelly continued talking: [[I could make it stronger, but—]]

[[Kira here: Stronger? ]]

[[Itari here: By increasing the flow of energy, the strength of the bubble can be improved, and the conversion to faster than light will happen closer to the star. But to do that, I would need equipment from one of our ships. There is no time to make the wanted parts from raw materials. ]]

“What is it saying? ” Hwa-jung asked. Kira explained, and the machine boss said, “How much closer? ”

[[Itari here: With your Orb of Conversion … at least half again. ]]

“You don’t look impressed, ” Kira said, after she finished translating.

Hwa-jung snorted. “I’m not. We already boost the field strength before going FTL. It’s an old trick. The drive can’t handle any more power, though. The reaction chamber will fail or the circuits will burn out. It’s not workable. ”

“Doesn’t matter in any case, ” said Sparrow. “You already said it: the Jelly can’t do anything without the right equipment. We’re just shitting out an airlock. ” She shrugged.

While they talked, Kira had been thinking. At first she wondered if the Soft Blade could provide Itari with the tools and materials it needed. She felt sure it ought to be possible, but she had no idea where or how to start, and the xeno gave her no hint. Then, she ran through everything she knew of on the Wallfish, searching for something—anything—that might help.

The answer sprang to her mind almost at once.

“Hold on, ” she said. Hwa-jung and Sparrow paused, looked at her. Kira tabbed her comms and put a call through to the Entropists: “Veera, Jorrus, we need you down in engineering, posthaste. Bring that object you found on the Jelly ship. ”

“On our way, Prisoner, ” the two replied.

Hwa-jung’s eyes narrowed. “You cannot expect a random piece of machinery scavenged off an alien ship to be of any real use, Navá rez. ”

“No, ” said Kira. “But it’s worth a try. ” She explained to Itari, and the Jelly settled onto the deck to wait, tentacles wrapped around itself.

“How can this squid do anything anyway? ” Sparrow demanded. She jerked the barrel of her blaster toward Itari. “It’s just a soldier. Are all their soldiers trained engineers? ”

“I would like to know that too, ” said Hwa-jung, her eyebrows beetling.

Kira relayed the question to the Jelly, and it said: [[Itari here: No, this form is not for making machines, but each form is given a seed of information to serve when needed. ]]

“What do you mean by form? ” said Sparrow.

Several of the alien’s tentacles twisted in on themselves. [[Itari here: This form. Different forms serve different uses. You should know; you have two forms yourselves. ]]

“Do they mean men and women? ” said Hwa-jung.

Sparrow also frowned. “Can Jellies change form? Is that what it—”

The arrival of the Entropists interrupted her. The two Questants cautiously approached Kira and—keeping both sets of eyes fixed on Itari—handed her the bluish, oblong-shaped object they had retrieved from the Jelly ship at 61 Cygni.

Nearscent of excitement struck Kira’s nostrils as she handed the piece to Itari. The Jelly turned the fist-sized object over with its crab-like arms, and its tentacles flushed with autumnal reds and oranges.

[[Itari here: This is a nodule from an Aspect of the Void. ]]

[[Kira here: Yes. That was the room where my shoalmates found it. Is the nodule of any use? ]]

[[Itari here: Perhaps. ]]

Then Kira watched with interest and some astonishment as a pair of even smaller arms unfolded from a hidden slot within the rim of the Jelly’s carapace. Like their larger brethren, the limbs were cased in a shiny, chitinous material, but unlike them, they were fine-jointed and tipped with a set of delicate cilia no more than a centimeter or two in length.

With them, Itari rapidly disassembled the nodule. Inside were a number of solid components, none of which resembled any part of a computer or mechanical device Kira was familiar with. If anything, the pieces most closely resembled shaped sections of a gem or crystal.

Components in-cilia, Itari returned to the Markov Drive and reached with its small, tertiary limbs into the depths of the spherical device.

As banging, scrabbling, and sharp metal screeches sounded inside the drive, Hwa-jung said, in a warning tone, “Kira. ”

“Give it a chance, ” said Kira, though she was equally tense. Along with the Entropists and machine boss, she peered over Itari’s tentacles, into the drive. There, Kira saw the Jelly fitting the crystalline components to different parts of the machine’s innards. Whatever the components touched, they bonded to after a few moments, tiny glittering threads joining them to the nearby material. But only—Kira noticed—where appropriate. Either Itari’s direction or some inbuilt programming guided the threads.

“How are they doing that? ” Hwa-jung asked, a strange intensity to her voice.

Upon Kira’s translation: [[Itari here: By the will of the Vanished. ]]

The Jelly’s answer did nothing to lessen Kira’s concerns, nor—it seemed—Hwa-jung’s. But they stood by and let the alien work unhindered. Then it said:

[[Itari here: You will need to turn off the rock mind governing the Orb of Conversion for this to work. ]]

“Rock mind? ” said Hwa-jung. “Does it mean the computer? ”

“I think so, ” said Kira.

“Mmh. ” The machine boss seemed less than pleased, but after several moments of silence as her eyes darted back and forth across her invisible overlays, she said, “Done. Gregorovich is overseeing the drive now. ”

After Kira informed the Jelly, it said, [[Itari here: The Orb of Conversion is ready. You may activate it twice as soon as before. ]]

Hwa-jung scowled as she bent over the drive, studying the mysterious additions to the machine’s internals. “And afterward? ”

[[Itari here: Afterward, the energy flow will be returned to normal, so your ship may swim as fast as always. ]]

The machine boss seemed unconvinced, but she grunted and said, “Guess that’s the best we’re going to get. ”

“Twice as soon as before, ” said Sparrow. “We’re thrusting at two g’s, so that means we can jump out … when? ”

“Seven hours, ” said Hwa-jung.

That was better than Kira had feared but far worse than she’d hoped. Seven hours was still more than enough time for one or more of the enemy ships to catch up with them.

When Hwa-jung called up to Control and informed Falconi of the situation, he said, “Well. Good. We’re not out of the woods, but we might be able to see the light between the trees. Neither the Jellies nor the nightmares are going to expect us to jump out so soon. If we’re lucky, they’ll think they have plenty of time to come after us and just concentrate on blowing each other out of the sky. … Good work, everyone. Kira, thank the Jelly for us and check if it needs any food, water, blankets, that sort of thing. Sparrow, make sure it gets back to the airlock. ”

“Yessir, ” said Sparrow. Then, when the comm line went dead, she said, “If we’re lucky. Sure. When have we had any luck recently? ”

“We are still alive, ” said Jorrus. “That—”

“—counts for something, ” said Veera.

“Uh-huh, ” said Sparrow. Then she motioned at Itari. “Comeon, big-and-ugly. Time to go. ”

Mention of the nightmares again turned Kira’s mind to unpleasant thoughts. As they ushered the Jelly into the narrow corridor outside engineering, she conveyed Falconi’s thanks and asked after the Jelly’s needs, to which it replied:

[[Itari here: Water would be welcome. That is all. This form is hardy and requires little to sustain it. ]]

Then she said, [[Kira here: Did you know that the Corrupted came from the Idealis? ]]

The alien seemed surprised she would ask. [[Itari here: Of course, two-form. Did you not? ]]

[[Kira here: No. ]]

Garish colors roiled the surface of its tentacles, and nearscent of confusion tinged the air. [[Itari here: How is that possible? Surely you were present for the spawning of these Corrupted. … We have been most curious about the circumstances of this, Idealis. ]]

Kira put a hand on Sparrow’s shoulder. “Hold on. I need a minute. ”

The woman glanced between her and the alien. “What’s up? ”

“Just trying to clarify something. ”

“Really? Now? You can chat all you want back at the airlock. ”

“It’s important. ”

Sparrow sighed. “Fine, but make it snappy. ”

Despite her immense reluctance, Kira explained to Itari the sequence of events that had resulted in the birth of the Maw. But she skimmed over the specifics of how exactly the explosion on the Extenuating Circumstances had happened, for she felt ashamed of what she had done and the consequences it had led to.

When she finished, a bouquet of unpleasant scents wafted from the Jelly’s hide. [[Itari here: So the Corrupted we see now are a mixture of Wranaui, two-forms, and the blessed Idealis? ]]

[[Kira here: Yes. ]]

The Jelly shivered. Not a reaction Kira had seen from any of their species before. [[Itari here: That is … unfortunate. Our enemy is even more dangerous than we first thought. ]]

You’re telling me.

Itari continued: [[Until you responded to the tsuro, the searching signal of the Vanished, we thought you were the Corrupted. How could we not, when we found Corrupted lying in wait for us around the star where we hid the Idealis? ]]

[[Kira here: Is that why you did not search for me after I left that system? ]]

Nearscent of affirmation. [[Itari here: We did search, Idealis, but again, we thought you were the Corrupted, so it was the Corrupted we followed. Not your little shell. ]]

She frowned, still struggling to understand. [[Kira here: So, the reason you and the rest of the Wranaui thought the Corrupted were allied with us is because … you knew that I’d created them? ]]

[[Itari here: Yes. Such a thing happened once before, during the Sundering, and it nearly proved our undoing. Even though the others of our kind did not know the exact source of these Corrupted, they knew it had to be from an Idealis. And since, as your co-form said, the Corrupted used your language and, for a time, did not attack your pools, it seemed clear that they were your shoalmates. It was only once we heard your signal and saw the response of the Corrupted that we realized you were not growing them to wage war against us. ]]

[[Kira here: The rest of the Wranaui must have realized this as well, yes? ]]

[[Itari here: Yes. ]]

[[Kira here: And yet they continue to attack us. ]]

[[Itari here: Because they still think you and your co-forms are responsible for the Corrupted. And you are, Idealis. From that point of view, the how and the why do not matter. It has long been our plan to dam your pools and limit your spread. The appearance of the Corrupted did nothing to change that. But the ones this form serves believe otherwise. They believe the Corrupted are too great a threat for the Wranaui to overcome alone. And they believe that now is the best chance since the Sundering to replace the leadership of the Arms. For that, we need your help, Idealis, and the help of your co-forms. ]]

[[Kira here: What exactly do you expect me to do? ]]

The Jelly flushed pink and blue. [[Itari here: Why, to oppose the Corrupted. Is not that obvious? Without the Staff of Blue, you are our greatest hope. ]]

With Itari safely returned to the airlock, Kira headed to the galley. There, she grabbed three ration bars and downed a glass of water. Gnawing on one of the bars, she made her way back through the center of the ship to the Wallfish’s machine shop. As once before, she opened the drawers of printing stock and stuck the stump of her arm into the different powders. Eat, she told the Soft Blade.

And it did.

Metals and organics and plastics: the xeno absorbed them all, and in great quantities. It seemed to be fortifying itself against what might come.

While the suit gorged, Kira ate the other two ration bars, although it was difficult to tear open their foil wrappers with just one hand—and her off one at that. Why couldn’t it have been my left? she thought.

In any case, the inconvenience kept her from dwelling upon darker, more dire things.

When she and the suit were both fed, enough time had passed that Kira felt sure Vishal had finished tending to the wounded. At least, enough to spare her a few minutes. So, she closed the drawers of stock and headed to sickbay.

The room was a shambles. Bandages, gauze, empty canisters of medifoam, and scraps of bloody clothes littered the deck. Four of the Marines were there: one on the lone exam table, three more lying on the deck in various stages of undress while the UMC medic attended to them along with Vishal. All of the injured men appeared sedated.

But Kira didn’t see the one person she was most worried about. As Vishal bustled over, she said, “Hey, where’s Trig? Is he okay? ”

Vishal’s expression darkened. “No, Ms. Kira. I cut him free from the webbing the Jelly placed on him. It most definitely saved his life, but…” The doc tsked and shook his head as he stripped off his blood-smeared gloves.

“Will he make it? ”

Vishal removed another pair of gloves from a box on the counter and donned them before answering. “If we can get Trig to a proper medical facility, then yes, he will survive. Otherwise, not so much. ”

“You can’t fix him here? ”

Vishal shook his head. “The projectile shattered vertebrae here”—he touched the upper part of her neck—“and sent fragments into his skull. He needs surgery of a sort the medibot here isn’t rated for. He may even be needing to have his brain transferred into a construct while a new body is grown for him. ”

The thought made Kira feel even worse. A kid as young as Trig losing his body. … It didn’t seem right. “Is he in cryo now? ”

“Yes, yes, in the storm shelter. ” Then Vishal reached for the end of her severed arm. “Now then, Ms. Kira, let me see. Ah, what have you been doing? ”

“Nothing fun, ” she said.

Vishal bobbed his head as he produced a scanner and started to examine the stump of her arm. “No, I would think not. ” His gaze flicked up toward her. “The men showed me some of what you did on Nidus. How you fought the Jellies and the nightmares. ”

Kira half shrugged, feeling uncomfortable. “I was just trying to keep us from getting killed. ”

“Of course, Ms. Kira. Of course. ” The doc tapped on the end of the stump. “Does that hurt? ”

She shook her head.

As he felt the muscles around the shortened end of her arm, Vishal said, “The video I saw … What you are able to do with this xeno…” He clucked his tongue and went rummaging around in one of the cupboards overhead.

“What of it? ” Kira said. The morbid part of her wondered how the sight of the Soft Blade killing had affected him. Did he see her as a monster now?

Vishal came back with a tube of green gel that he rubbed across her stump. It was cool and viscous. He pressed an ultrasound projector against her arm and focused on his overlays while he said, “I have a name for your xeno, Ms. Kira. ”

“Oh? ” Kira said, curious. She realized she’d never told him that the suit called itself the Soft Blade.

Vishal shifted his gaze to her for a moment, serious. “The Varunastra. ”

“And what is that? ”

“A very famous weapon from Hindu mythology. The Varunastra is made of water and can assume the shape of any weapon. Yes, and many warriors such as Arjuna used it. Those who carry weapons of the gods are known as Astradhari. ” He eyed her from under his eyebrows. “You are Astradhari, Ms. Kira. ”

“Somehow I doubt that, but … I do like the name. The Varunastra. ”

The doc smiled slightly and handed her a towel. “It is named after the god Varuna. He who made it. ”

“And what is the price for using the Varunastra? ” said Kira as she wiped the gel off her arm. “There’s always a price for using the weapons of the gods. ”

Vishal put away the ultrasound. “There is no price per se, Ms. Kira, but it must be used with great care. ”

“Why? ”

The doc seemed reluctant to answer, but at last he said, “If you lose control of the Varunastra, it can destroy you. ”

“Is that so? ” said Kira. A slight chill crawled down her spine. “Well, the name fits. Varunastra. ” Then she motioned toward the stump of her arm. “Can you do anything for me? ”

Vishal wobbled his hand from side to side. “You do not seem to be in pain, but—”

“No. ”

“—but we do not have time to print a replacement arm for you before we leave the system. Hwa-jung may be able to make a prosthetic for you, but again, time is very short. ”

“If it weren’t, ” said Kira, “do you think you would be able to attach the replacement? I can make the suit retract from the area, but … I’m not sure how long I could hold it back, and if you have to cut open the skin again—” She shook her head. Anesthetic wouldn’t be an option for her either. Maybe a prosthetic would end up being the best choice after all.

Vishal bent to check the dressings on the leg of a Marine and then said, “True, true. But the xeno knows how to heal, yes? ”

“Yes, ” said Kira, thinking of how it had joined Carr and the Jelly. Sometimes too well.

“Then perhaps it could join a new arm to you. I do not know, but it seems capable of great things, Ms. Kira. ”

“The Varunastra. ”

“Indeed so. ” And he smiled at her, showing his bright white teeth. “Aside from the injury itself, I can find nothing wrong with your arm. You tell me if you feel any pain, and I will look at it again, but in meantime, I do not think it is necessary to take any special precautions. ”

“Okay. Thanks. ”

“Of course, Ms. Kira. My pleasure to help. ”

Back outside the sickbay, Kira paused in the hallway, hand on hip, and took a few seconds to collect herself. What she really needed was time to sit and think and process everything that had happened.

But, as Vishal had said, time was short, and there were things that needed doing. And not all of them were so obvious—or straightforward—as combat.

From sickbay, she headed toward the center of the ship and the lead-lined storm shelter set directly under Control. She found Nielsen standing by one of the seven cryo tubes mounted along the walls. Trig lay inside the tube, his face barely visible through the frosted viewplate. Smears of dark blood still discolored his neck, and there was a slackness to his face—an absence—that Kira found unsettling. The body before her didn’t feel like the person she knew but rather an object. A thing. A thing devoid of any animating spark.

Nielsen moved aside as Kira walked over and put a hand on the side of the tube. It was cold beneath her palm. She wasn’t going to see the kid again anytime soon. What was the last thing she’d said to him? She couldn’t remember, and it bothered her.

“I’m sorry, ” she whispered. If she’d been faster, if she hadn’t been so careful to keep the Soft Blade under control, she could have saved him. And yet, maybe not. … Given what she now knew about the creation of the nightmares, letting go was the last thing she should have done. Using the Soft Blade was like playing with a motion-activated bomb; at any moment it could go off and kill someone.

What was the answer, then? There had to be a middle way—a way that would allow her to operate not from fear but a sense of confidence. Where it was, though, she didn’t know. Too much control and the Soft Blade might as well be nothing more than a glorified skinsuit. Not enough and, well, she’d seen the result. Catastrophe. She was trying to balance upon a knife’s edge, and so far, she’d failed and it had cut her.

“Eat the path, ” Kira murmured, remembering Inarë ’s words.

“It’s my fault, ” said Nielsen, surprising her. The first officer joined her by the front of the cryo tube.

“No, it’s not, ” said Kira.

Nielsen shook her head. “I should have known he would do something foolish if he thought I was in danger. He’s always acted like a puppy around me. Should have sent him back to the ship. ”

“You can’t blame yourself, ” said Kira. “If anything … I’m the one responsible. ” She explained.

“You don’t know what would have happened if you let the suit act on its own. ”

“Maybe. And there’s no way you could have known that Jelly was going to pop up. You didn’t do anything wrong. ”

After a moment, Nielsen relented. “I suppose. The thing is, we should have never put Trig in that situation in the first place. ”

“Did we really have a choice? It wasn’t much safer on the Wallfish. ”

“That doesn’t mean it’s right. He’s younger than both my sons. ”

“He’s not a child, though. ”

Nielsen touched the top of the tube. “No, he isn’t. Not anymore. ”

Kira hugged her, and after her initial surprise, Nielsen hugged back. “Hey, the doc says he’ll live, ” said Kira, pulling away. “And you did make it. Everyone on the Wallfish did. I bet Trig would consider that a win. ”

The first officer managed a wan smile. “Let’s try to avoid any more wins like that from now on. ”

“Agreed. ”

Twenty-eight minutes later, the Darmstadt exploded. One of the nightmares controlled by the Seeker managed to hit the UMC cruiser with a missile, rupturing its Markov Drive and vaporizing half the ship.

Kira was in Control when it happened, but even there, she heard a loud “Fuck! ” echoing up from the injured Marines in sickbay.

She stared with dismay at the holo of the system—at the blinking red dot that marked the last location of the Darmstadt. All those people, dead because of her. The sense of guilt was overwhelming.

Falconi must have seen something of it on her face, because he said, “There’s nothing we could have done. ”

Perhaps not, but that didn’t make Kira feel any better.

Tschetter contacted them almost immediately. “Captain Falconi, the Jellies with me will continue to provide you with as much cover as possible. We can’t guarantee your safety, though, so I’d advise maintaining your current burn. ”

“Roger that, ” said Falconi. “What sort of shape are your ships in? ”

“Don’t worry about us, Captain. Just get back to the League in one piece. We’ll take care of the rest. Over. ”

In the holo, Kira saw the three friendly Jelly ships darting in and around the larger conflict. Only four of the hostile Jelly ships remained, and most of the nightmares’ had been disabled or destroyed, but those last few were still fighting, still dangerous.

“Gregorovich, ” said Falconi. “Crank us up another quarter g. ”

“Captain, ” said Hwa-jung in a warning tone. “The repairs may not hold. ”

He looked at her with a steady gaze. “I trust you, Song. The repairs will hold. ”

Gregorovich cleared his simulated throat, then, and said, “Increasing thrust, O Captain, my Captain. ”

And Kira felt the weight of her limbs increase yet again. She sank into the nearest chair and sighed as the cushioning took some of the pressure off her bones. Even with the help of the Soft Blade, the extra thrust was far from pleasurable. Just breathing took noticeable effort.

“How much time does that save us? ” Falconi asked.

“Twenty minutes, ” said Gregorovich.

Falconi grimaced. “It’ll have to do. ” His shoulders were hunched under the force of the heavy burn, and the skin on his face sagged, making him look older than he was.

Then Nielsen, who was on the other side of the holo, said, “What are we going to do about the Marines? ”

“Is there a problem? ” Kira asked.

Falconi lay back in his own chair, allowing it to support him. “We don’t have enough cryo tubes for everyone. We’re four short. And we sure as hell don’t have the supplies to keep anyone awake and kicking all the way back to the League. ”

Apprehension formed in Kira as she remembered her time without food on the Valkyrie. “So what then? ”

An evil gleam appeared in Falconi’s eye. “We ask for volunteers, that’s what. If the Jelly could put Trig into stasis, then it can wrap up the Marines. Doesn’t seem to have hurt Tschetter. ”

Kira exhaled forcefully. “Hawes and his men aren’t going to like that, not one bit. ”

Falconi chuckled, but beneath it, he was still deadly serious. “Tough. Beats having to take a walk out an airlock. I’ll let you inform them, Audrey. Less of a chance they’ll punch a woman. ”

“Gee, thanks, ” said Nielsen with a wry expression. But she didn’t complain any further as she carefully pushed herself out of her seat and headed down to the hold.

“Now what? ” Kira asked once the first officer was gone.

“Now, we wait, ” said Falconi.

CHAPTER VIII

SINS OF THE PRESENT

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