That didn’t sound like a bad outcome to Callie, but she went to Elena’s side and helped her maneuver Sebastien’s body, so when the gravity came back on, he would only drop slightly, and not break any bones. “Sorry, sorry,” Callie said. She spoke into her comms: “Gravity, please.”

When the gravity returned, they bent their knees to take Sebastien’s weight, and lowered him gently to the floor.

Elena gazed down at him. “I know he’s just a monster to you, but Sebastien is a good person, Callie. Or he was. I knew him.” She touched the spider’s legs, penetrating deep into his skull. “Do you think we can save him? Make him the way he used to be?”

“Ashok has some ideas about removing the implants, and Stephen will help. If we can get Sebastien to the White Raven, we can try. Now that he’s not awake to mess everything up, Uzoma should be able to get us out of here–”

“You found Uzoma? They’re all right?”

“They seem to be coping better than Sebastien did. But before we can go, we have to do something about… that.” Callie nodded toward the hangar beyond the wall of glass. She forced herself to look at it, though it made her guts clench. Hundreds of ships being constructed, all full of mind-altering brain-spiders.

Lantern hurried in from the corridor, followed by Ashok and Uzoma. Elena ran up to the latter, as if to hug them, then stopped short. “Sorry. I know you don’t like to be hugged.”

“Thank you for remembering. I am very pleased to see you all the same.” They reached out and squeezed Elena’s hand. Uzoma’s gaze went to the wall of windows. “I think the fleet is nearly done.”

“Even without Sebastien to launch them, they’re a loaded gun pointed at our solar system,” Callie said. “We have to assume these are primed and ready to launch.”

“We could try to erase their navigational data,” Ashok said.

“Then it’s just a loaded gun pointed at anywhere. I thought I could just leave them behind, but… I’ll be seeing those spiky ships in my nightmares forever if we don’t do something about them. Lantern, is there anything your people can do?”

“We do not destroy Axiom facilities. We merely sequester them, and only destroy any forbidden artifacts that make their way into inhabited space.”

Callie chewed her lip. “So we can do Uzoma’s plan. Open up some hangar doors and fire everything we’ve got on the White Raven inside, and hope it blows up real good. But will it be good enough?”