Ships swarmed around the two structures. A different icon marked each ship: civilians in blue, military vessels in gold. Without closing her overlays, Kira said, “Can they stop the Jellies?”

On the other side of the translucent overlays, Falconi frowned. “Not sure. The Darmstadt is their only real firepower. The rest of the ships are just locals. PDF cutters and the like.”

“PDF?”

“Planetary Defense Force.”

Sparrow clicked her tongue. “Yeah, but those Jelly ships are the small ones. Naru-class.”

To Kira, Trig said: “The Naru-class ships only carry three squids, two or three crawlers, and about the same number of snappers. ’Course, some of ’em have heavy crabs as well.”

“Sure they do,” said Sparrow with a humorless smirk.

Vishal chimed in: “And that before they start turning out reinforcements from their birthing pods.”

“Birthing pods?” Kira asked, feeling totally out of the loop.

Hwa-jung answered: “They have machines that let them grow new fighters.”

“I … I didn’t see anything about that in the news,” said Kira.

Falconi grunted. “The League has been keeping it under wraps to avoid scaring people, but we caught wind of it a few weeks ago.”

The concept of a birthing pod seemed dimly familiar to Kira, as a half-forgotten memory. If only she could get her hands on a Jelly computer! The things she could learn!

Sparrow said, “The Jellies must be pretty confident if they think they can take out Malpert and the Darmstadt with just those four ships.”

“Don’t count out the miners,” said Trig. “They’ve got plenty of weapons, and they won’t run. Swear to god they won’t.”

Kira gave him a questioning look, and the kid shrugged. “I grew up on Undset Station, over at Cygni B. I know ’em. Those space rats are tough as titanium.”

“Yeah, well,” said Sparrow, “they ain’t going to be fighting no half-starved jackers this time.”

Nielsen stirred. “Captain,” she said, “we still have time to change course.”

Kira cleared her overlays in order to better see Falconi’s face. He appeared distracted as he studied screens she couldn’t see. “Not sure it would make any difference,” he murmured. He tapped a button on the kitchen wall, and a holo of 61 Cygni appeared suspended in the air. He pointed at the red dots that marked the Jellies. “Even if we turn tail and run, there’s no way we can escape them.”

“No, but if we put some distance between us and them, they might decide the chase isn’t worth the effort,” said Nielsen. “It’s always worked before.”

Falconi made a face. “We’ve already burned through a good chunk of hydrogen. Getting to Ruslan now would be dicey. We’d have to coast at least half the distance. Would be sitting ducks the whole time.” He scratched his chin, eyes still fixed on the holo.

Sparrow said, “What are you thinking, Captain?

“We let the Wallfish live up to its name,” he said. He highlighted an asteroid some distance from Malpert Station. “Here. There’s an extraction outfit on this asteroid—asteroid TSX-Two-Two-One-Two. Says there’s a hab-dome, refueling tanks, the whole lot. We can cozy up to the asteroid and wait until the fighting is over. If the Jellies decide to come after us, we’d have tunnels to hide in. As long as they don’t drop a nuke on us or something like that, we’d at least have a chance.”