The ship rumbled and shuddered as it went through a patch of space dust, but no one in the storage room seemed to notice. They were riveted; Mitzi guessed this was possibly the first honest, complete explanation of the parasites they’d heard.

“Central realised something was wrong about two weeks ago, when things started coming to a crux. One of the larger research stations was completely destroyed during a fight. Survivors—station crews who had either been lucky enough or innovative enough to escape the Cymics—began sending warnings to Central. At that time, Central still had no idea what it was up against. It had received thousands of emergency help requests, many times the normal, and had people sending it warnings about a black monster that can replicate human faces. Everything was chaos. Central couldn’t get a straight story or figure out what the threat was or how dangerous it might be. It sent a very general warning for all stations to be wary of lifeforms they encountered. Of course, that was next to useless.”

“I remember that,” Ellen said, her eyes as large as saucers. “Didn’t they send a second, more complete message the next day?”

“You’re from a station, are you?” Mitzi asked, and Ellen nodded. “You’re mostly right. A survivor had managed to get back to Central. She was frustrated and terrified by Central’s silence, and barricaded herself in their communications room, where she sent a message to as many stations as she could, explaining as much as she could. Her knowledge was incomplete, but she was able to disseminate enough information to allow many stations to fight back. Some people say she’s responsible for humanity still being alive today.”

“So, how do you fight them?” Adam asked. “I heard they can be killed with fire.”

“Hold on. I’m getting to that.” Mitzi raised her hands, begging for silence. “Right, so, since that message, a lot of stations learned how to fight the monsters, and more and more survivors were able to make it back to Central and share their knowledge. And, as of last week, Central, that behemoth of bureaucracy, finally started putting up a fight. They worked out systems to detect Cymics and installed them at the ports of as many major stations as they could. They set up artillery points to shoot down any crafts that tried to bypass their checks. They started disseminating basic survival information and sending weapons to the stations they could afford to. This gets me onto my next point: what a Cymic actually is.”

“They can change their appearance to replicate any person, can’t they?” Franc was fidgeting with the neckline of his suit, looking incredibly uncomfortable in it.

“Not quite. Cymic Parasites are, as the name implies, parasites. In their native form, they’re black slimy creatures that have no eyes, ears, or nose, but a multitude of tendrils they can use to attack their prey. They don’t eat, but they spread themselves by finding hosts. If a Cymic found a human, for instance, they would force their way into the body, either through the person’s mouth or by stabbing through the flesh, and infest their new host. Conversion only takes a couple of minutes. The insides of the human are liquefied and absorbed, and the parasite spreads through its new container, consuming nearly everything.