“We’ve got sidearms, you blob of shit in a spacesuit, and if it comes to it, I’ll beat you all to death with a wrench.”

The Liar turned its body and seemed to consult with another of its kind. “Tell us where the Axiom device is located. Otherwise, we will be forced to investigate all possible hiding places, and sanitize them all. Many humans will die.”

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Callie demanded. “Liars don’t fight!”

“That is incorrect. We simply choose our battles. Enough. We will sanitize your ship. Your vessel is small enough for us to collect and catalogue the debris and determine whether the device is present. If not… our investigators will annihilate every place you might have plausibly concealed it.”

“Wait!” Callie said, but the screen went blank. “Fuck. Ashok, is there any way we can take them down with us, at least?” Callie thought uncomfortably of Elena’s story; of Robin trying to blow up their ship, to at least make their attackers pay. It was terrible to put Elena in that position again.

“I could manually rig the engine to blow, sure, but it would take a little time, and cap… we don’t have it. They’re powering up something big in one of those starfish arms. I’m reading energy signatures like whoa.”

“I am so sorry,” Elena said. “I got you all into this.”

“There is no anguish beyond death,” Stephen rumbled over the PA.

“Fuckity fuck fuck fuck,” Janice said.

“I could tear open a panel here, physically mess up some systems, and cut off the oxygen,” Drake said. “We’d pass out before we died. Might make it more peaceful.”

“I think we’ll be vaporized so fast it won’t hurt much,” Ashok said. “Besides, I’m pretty sure we’ve got about eleven more seconds to live. Damn it. There are five colony systems I never even got to visit. I was hoping to see them all.”

“I love you, Callie,” the computer said. “I never stopped loving you.”

“Oh, Michael,” she said. “I never meant for this to–”

The bridge generator hummed, a single sustained note, somewhere just north of middle C.

Chapter Twelve

“Something’s happening,” the ship said. “I’ve got systems control again.” The screens all shifted to exterior views from the hull cameras, trained on the distant (but close enough to kill them) shape of the starfish ship.

A dark spot, like a visual artifact on the screen, appeared in the center of their ship. Then the darkness grew, like a drop of ink in a pool of water, then like a crack spiderwebbing across a window. The starfish ship came apart, fragments of the hull falling and spinning away, all seven legs drifting like they’d been cleanly severed.

“It’s a bridgehead.” Ashok’s voice was awe and horror all at once. “Opening right in the middle of the Liar ship.”