“Behave? Ah’ll show you behave!” The man’s head snapped backwards and slammed into her nose.

Blinding pain exploded in Kira’s face. An involuntary cry escaped her, and she felt the man squirming in his shirt, trying to tear free.

“Stp it!” she said as tears flooded her eyes and blood clogged her nose and throat.

The man swung his head back again. This time he caught her right on the chin. It hurt. A lot. Kira lost her grip, and the man twisted out of her arms.

She grabbed him again, and he took a swing at her, sending them tumbling.

“Thts engh!” she shouted, angry.

At the words, a spike shot from her chest and stabbed the man through the ribs. He stared at her with disbelief, and then he convulsed, and his eyes rolled back in his skull. Blots of red spread across his shirt.

Across the hold, the four other Numenists cried out.

Horror immediately replaced Kira’s anger. “No! I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to. I didn’t—” With a slithery sensation, the spike retracted.

“Here!” said Vishal. He tossed her a line from by the wall. Kira caught it without thinking, and the doctor reeled her and the Numenist in. “Hold him still,” said Vishal. He ripped open the side of the man’s shirt and, with a small applicator, sprayed medifoam into the wound.

“Will he—” Kira started to ask.

“He’ll live,” said Vishal, hands still working. “But I have to get him to sickbay.”

“Trig, help the doctor,” said Nielsen, drifting over.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“As for you,” said Nielsen, pointing at the rest of the Numenists, “get out of here before I throw you out.” They started to protest, and she stopped them with a glare. “We’ll let you know when you can have your friend back. Now scram.”

Trig took the man’s feet and Vishal his head. Then they carried him off, just as Hwa-jung had carried Sparrow.

3.

Kira hung by the wall, dazed. The rest of the refugees were staring at her with fear and outright hostility, but she didn’t care. In her head, the unconscious Numenist was Alan, bleeding out in her arms while the air escaped screaming through holes torn in the walls.…

She’d lost control. Just for an instant, but she might have killed a man, same as she’d killed her teammates. This time she couldn’t put the blame on the Soft Blade; she’d wanted to hurt the Numenist, to hurt him until he stopped hurting her. The Soft Blade had only been responding to that urge.

“Are you alright?” Nielsen asked.

It took Kira a moment to respond. “Yeah.”

“You need to get that looked at.”

Kira touched her face and winced. The pain was receding, but she could feel her nose was humped and crooked. She tried to push it back into place, but the Soft Blade had already healed it too much to move. Apparently close enough was good enough where the xeno was concerned.

“Dammit,” she murmured, feeling defeated. The nose would have to be rebroken before it could be straightened.