BOOM! A white flash obscured the crate hiding the Jelly. Metal fragments splattered the surrounding walls, and smoke billowed outward.

Several of the refugees screamed.

Sparrow twisted back toward Falconi. “Watch it! Not so close to the civvies!”

Kira gestured at the crate. It hardly appeared dented. “What’s that thing made of? Titanium?”

“Pressure container,” said Falconi. “Biocontainment. Damn thing is built to survive reentry.”

Sparrow and Hwa-jung let off a burst of shots toward the Jelly. Kira stayed where she was. What else could she do? The Jelly was at least fifteen meters away. Too far for—

A fresh set of screams sounded from among the refugees. Kira looked back to see a tiny body squirming in the air, a child no more than six or seven years old. The girl had somehow lost her handhold and floated away from the deck.

A man scrambled free of the mass of refugees and threw himself after the child. “Stay down!” Falconi shouted, but too late. The man caught the girl, and the impact sent them into an uncontrolled tumble down the middle of the hold.

Surprise made Kira slow to react. Sparrow beat her to it; the armored woman abandoned the rib she was behind and flew at full thruster speed toward the two refugees.

Falconi cursed and lunged in a failed attempt to stop Sparrow from leaving cover.

A fan of inky smoke sprayed around the Jelly, hiding it. With her enhanced vision, Kira could still see a tangled outline of the Jelly’s tentacles as it crawled toward a service ladder attached to the wall.

She fired into the smoke, as did Hwa-jung.

The Jelly flinched even as it wrapped a tentacle around one of the ladder’s side struts and, seemingly without effort, tore it free.

Fast as a striking snake, it threw the strut at Sparrow.

The jagged piece of metal struck Sparrow in the abdomen, between two segments of her power armor. Half of the strut emerged from her back.

Hwa-jung screamed, a horrible, high-pitched sound that seemed impossible coming from someone her size.

5.

A rush of blinding anger washed away Kira’s fear. Swinging herself around the edge of the rib, she launched herself after the Jelly.

Behind her, Falconi shouted something.

As she hurtled toward the Jelly, the alien spread its tentacles, as if to welcome her into its embrace. From it emanated nearscent of contempt, and for the first time, she responded in kind:

[[Kira here: Die, grasper!]]

An instant of astonishment that the Soft Blade let her not only comprehend but communicate in the alien language. Then she did what seemed only right: she stabbed with her arm, and she stabbed with her heart and her mind, and she channeled all of her fear, pain, and anger into the act.

In that moment, Kira felt something break in her mind, like a glass rod snapping in two, followed by fractures and fragments fitting into place throughout her consciousness—puzzle pieces sliding into their appointed slots, and accompanying the joining, a sense of profound completeness.