“If you’re going to do something, now’s the time,” said Falconi, reloading Francesca from the pouch on his belt.

“Fuck that,” said Koyich. “Use shaped charges; blow it open.”

“No!” said Kira. “You could destroy the staff.”

Koyich ducked as bullets and shrapnel whined overhead. He pulled the tab on another canister of chalk and threw it into the center of the plaza. “We’ll get destroyed, if we can’t get in there.”

An image flashed through Kira’s mind of the moment when she’d ripped the transmitter out of the wall of the Jelly ship. “Just hold them off,” she said, scrambling to her feet. Keeping her head down, she ran to the blocked entrance of the temple and put her hands against the cold metal.

Sweat dripped into her eyes as she loosened her grip on the Soft Blade—just a fraction—and reached out with the suit, stretching and spreading herself, like a rubber sheet pulled taut. Don’t lose control … don’t lose control.…

A bullet flattened itself against the metal above her head, spraying her with silvery spall. Kira hunched her shoulders and tried to ignore the constant, battering explosions of gunfire and grenades.

Her skin crawled as the Soft Blade tore open her skinsuit and formed a web of knotting tendrils between her fingers. The tendrils extended outward, flowing across the metal surface, seeking and grasping with millions of hairlike feelers.

“Thule!” Trig exclaimed.

“Might want to hurry,” Falconi said in a conversational tone.

Kira pressed inward with the xeno, driving it into every cranny and crevice and microscopic stress fracture. She felt the xeno—felt herself—burrowing through the bonded structure of the metal, like tree roots digging through hard-packed earth.

The metal was incredibly thick. Meters upon meters of it armored the entrance to the temple. What were they trying to keep out? she wondered. Then it occurred to her that perhaps the Soft Blade was the answer to that question.

Heat radiated from the surface of the metal as it began to give. “Get ready!” she shouted. The moment she felt movement between her various extruded tendrils, she yanked, hard.

With an anguished shriek, the metal parted. Glittering dust filled the air as the fibers of the suit pulled heavy, silver-grey chunks away from the building. A dark opening took shape before her.

Overhead, three more Jelly ships screamed across the sky, meteors trailing fire and smoke. From them fell scores of drop-pods: evil seeds planted throughout the city. Too late, Kira thought, triumphant.

She returned the Soft Blade to herself, and again she was whole.

4.

Bullets whined off the sides of the jagged metal, and laser blasts melted finger-sized holes—splattering molten droplets in every direction—as Kira pushed forward into the darkness.

Falconi followed close behind, then Trig, Nielsen, and the rest of the squad. The Marines activated flat, hemispherical glow lights, which they tossed around the perimeter of the space.

The room was huge and deep. Even with the crazed collection of lights, Kira recognized the sweep of the arched ceiling and the pattern of the tessellated floor. This place she had walked long ago, beside the Highmost, near the end of days.… A graveyard chill gave her pause, and she said, quietly, “Everyone be careful. Don’t touch anything.”