She’d kept a hold of her club even through the decompression and violent reintroduction to the ship. Unbelievable. I found the club on my other side, where she must have landed, and passed it into her waiting hand.

When she stood, I saw that Indigo was conscious, still braced on his elbows and his jaw so tight he must be grinding his teeth. “Are you okay?” I asked.

“Help him up, Sean,” Tamara said.

Indigo reached for his sword when I went to pull him up. His hand closed around the hilt, but the sword didn’t budge when he tugged it. The blade had melted the floor, and gotten stuck there after it had cooled.

He’d have to reheat the blade to pull it free. Looking at his drawn face, I wasn’t sure he could. “Just leave it,” I said, as the sound of scratching nails got closer and closer.

He shut his eyes and I recognized defeat. I hauled him up with a troubling wet sound as the fabric of his jumpsuit pulled free of the floor. “You’re bleeding a lot,” I told him.

“Let’s go,” Tamara warned us, already backing up, and I pulled Indigo away from the sound of scrabbling nails.

He couldn’t quite find his footing at first, stumbling and slow. His collar-light was the only light we had and I tried to spot some sort of pathway to escape in the dim blue glow. With Tamara guarding our backs, I was suddenly the guide.

I knew the manikins had caught up to us when I heard the solid thunk of Tamara’s club impacting something’s skull. I pulled Indigo to a wobbling stop and turned to see what our pursuit was.

They were spread out all down the hall, glinting eyes and glinting claws, plasticky flesh and corpselike limbs. “We have to find a way out of here,” I said.

Tamara slammed her club into an advancing manikin’s reaching arm. “I’m open to ideas, Sean!”

There was a manikin on the edges of Tamara’s reach, creeping around her, its eyes fixed on Indigo and me. I fumbled at my belt and realized I’d lost my knife with the flashlight. “Do you remember this part of the ship? Is there another room where we can lock the door?”

“I don’t know, and we don’t have time to look for one!”

She shouted as she brought her club down on the head of another manikin. It staggered, blood streaking blackly down its features.

The manikin approaching Indigo and I was too close for comfort, and I didn’t have a weapon. I grabbed Indigo, ready to haul him back and curl around him, provide some shield from the monster, but he shoved me away instead with surprising strength.

I landed hard on the ground, Indigo between me and the manikin. “Tamara!” Indigo gritted out, and she glanced over her shoulder, then tossed him her club. He caught it in midair and she turned back to the manikin lunging at her, drawing a knife from her belt in the same motion. Indigo slammed the club into the manikin’s skull with inhuman strength, hard enough to split bone. The manikin fell, dead, but Indigo dropped to his knees as well.