In the light of the exterior halogens, she caught sight of a blurry figure whose image gradually sharpened until she saw that it was Regina—as perfectly hideous and grotesque as she had been in the city: an undulant, boneless horror like a human eel. Her spreading, spiny fins were slightly luminous, red-tipped gills quivering at her throat, her mouth like that of a channel catfish with twisting, whip-like barbels growing from her swollen lips.

“No, no, no,” Javy muttered, suppressing the scream that begged to be voided, her muscles gone lax, her body shuddering. She could barely stay on her feet.

Regina watched her with the huge, lidless eyes of an abyssal fish, her tentacle arms coiling obscenely, the suckers on their undersides anxious to rip the flesh from her bones.

(ALICE DO NOT TURN AWAY FROM ME)

Now Javy did scream as she bicycled backwards and crashed to the floor. She clutched her head in her hands as Regina shrieked at her. Her mind was like a radio locked on a single station and the volume was being turned louder and louder and louder until it seemed like her skull would crack open.

(ALICE LOOK AT ME ALICE)

And then Bell was there, pulling her to her feet. He cast a look out the viewport and it was obvious he saw something, at least a quick glimpse of it, then he helped Javy back to the the control center.

“Javy,” he said. “Javy…c’mon, talk to me…”

But she found that she was incapable. Her thoughts were jumbled, her mind echoing with that awful, strident voice, and her mouth just couldn’t seem to form words. Her eyes were fixed on dead space, seeing something no one else could.

“She looks like she’s in shock,” Murphy said.

Her mouth opened and closed. Her face was twisted in a smirk. Finally, she said, “Mama…mama’s coming…”

At that moment, something hit the Neptune. And whatever it was, it must have had the raw, bull strength of a battering whale to make the entire structure shake. Bell was thrown against the bulkhead. Hubbs crashed into Murphy. Javy’s head whipped back and forth, her body jerking with muscular spasms.

Alarms were ringing out, echoing through Main Lock. Computer screens flickered. Lights flashed. And then it was hit again. Everyone was dumped to the floor. The lights flickered and the habitat was thrown into the seamless blackness of the bottom of the lake. A pressure relief valve down the corridor blew, spraying jets of water. Rivets popped in the ceiling, one of them bouncing around like a ricocheted bullet.

“It’s attacking us!” Murphy called out. “It’s goddamn well attacking us!”

The emergency lights came on weakly like guttering candles. Javy crawled across the floor, saying things under her breath that no one else could hear in the cacophony and which she could not even understand herself.