Thinking about what lay ahead wouldn’t make it easier, so she pushed it from her mind. “How is the UMC reacting to us leaving?” she asked, unclasping her harness.

“Not well,” said Falconi. “I don’t know what Akawe told them back at Vyyborg, but it can’t have made them happy, because they’re threatening us with all sorts of legal hellfire if we don’t turn around.”

Gregorovich chuckled, and his laugh echoed through the ship. “It’s most amusing, their impotent rage. They seem quite … panicked.”

“Can you blame them?” Nielsen said.

Falconi shook his head. “I’d hate to be the one who has to explain to Sol how and why they lost not only an entire cruiser but also Kira and the suit.”

Then Vishal said, “Captain, you should see what’s happening on local news.”

“What channel?”

“RTC.”

Kira switched to her overlays and searched for the channel. It came right up, and in front of her, she saw footage of a ship interior recorded from someone’s implants. Screams sounded, and a man’s body flew past, collided with another, smaller person. It took Kira a second to realize she was looking at the inside of the Wallfish’s hold.

Shit.

A knotted, writhing shape swung into view: a Jelly. The person recording focused on the alien just as it threw something off-screen. Another scream rent the air; that scream, Kira remembered.

Then she saw herself fly past, like a black spear from above, and grapple with the Jelly while a long, bladed spike sprang from her skin and impaled the thrashing alien.

The video froze, and in voice-over, a woman said, “Could this battlesuit be a product of the UMC’s advanced weapons programs? Possibly. Other passengers confirmed that the woman was rescued from a UMC shuttle a few days before. Which makes us wonder: What other technology is the League hiding from us? And then there’s this incident from earlier today. Once more, a warning to sensitive viewers: the following footage contains graphic material.”

The video resumed, and Kira again saw herself: this time attempting to subdue the purple-haired Numenist. He smashed his head back into her face, and then she stabbed him, not so differently from the Jelly.

From the outside, the sight was more frightening than Kira had realized. No wonder the refugees had looked at her the way they did; she would have also.

The reporter’s voice-over returned: “Was this a justifiable use of force or the reaction of a dangerous, out-of-control individual? You decide. Ellen Kaminski was later seen being escorted to the UMCN cruiser the Darmstadt, and it seems unlikely she will ever face criminal charges. We attempted to interview the passengers who spoke with her. This was the result—”

The footage resumed, and Kira saw the Entropists being approached in a hallway somewhere on Malpert. “Excuse me. Wait. Excuse me,” said the off-screen reporter. “What can you tell us about Ellen Kaminski, the woman who killed the Jelly on the Wallfish?”

“We have nothing to say, Prisoner,” said Veera and Jorrus together. They ducked their heads, hiding behind the hoods of their robes.