A pseudopod picked up Hans and dropped him into the flower-tube. He screamed and fired his shotgun as he slid down, but without doing any noticeable damage. He howled more loudly: “Fuck, my suit is holed, I got hit with my own ricochet, damn it–”

His feed cut off, too. The immense creature, if it was a creature, stood still, its cilia gently undulating, its flower-like head swaying.

Robin was crouched beside a stacked pile of irregularly shaped metal plates, trying to hide. “Elena, do you see any weak points on that thing? Is any part of it worth shooting?”

“We don’t know for sure that it’s hostile,” Sebastien said. “It didn’t swallow Ibn until he shot it, and Hans attacked it too–”

“Don’t give me that,” Robin said. “It doesn’t matter who started the fight now. We’ve officially started an interstellar incident. This isn’t the way I wanted to go down in history, but it’s the situation we’re in.” Robin looked up. The shape of the ship was changing radically, Elena saw: the Anjou had sprouted fins, wings, spines, various bits of strange metal grafted on, and now the robot arms were doing something to the engines.

“Well, Elena? Where should I aim?”

“I barely understand what I’m looking at, Robin. It has some elements that remind me of sea life back on Earth, but parts of it also seem plant-like, and other parts are like nothing I’ve seen before at all… but something that big? I don’t think your pistol will make much of an impression.”

“Understood. Uzoma? Can you detonate the propulsion system on the Anjou?”

Elena sucked in a breath.

“I could,” Uzoma said after a moment. “It would be equivalent to setting off several atomic bombs, because that is, essentially, what I would be doing.”

“If that thing tries to get to the ship, to get you… blow up the Anjou. Do some damage before it can eat you. I’m going to look for a control panel, some way to release the ship, open the airlock, let you get away.” She sighed. “This is pointless. It’s not like I’ll find a big red button to press that says ‘Open.’ Maybe you should just blow up the ship now–”

Uzoma rushed into the cargo hold and slammed the button that sealed the door. They pressed their back against the wall, hard, then stared at Sebastien and Elena, eyes wild. “There’s something on the ship. It’s a machine, robotic, like a crab or a spider, but not. It tore open a panel in the control room and climbed inside–”

“Did you manage to send a message, Uzoma?” Robin’s voice was sharp, no-nonsense, and fully in charge.

“I did not. I was interrupted.” Being asked a question seemed to calm them down.

“Damn it. At this point, it’s down to damage control. I want you to blow the engines.”