“Cover!” Koyich shouted, diving behind a pile of rubble.

Falconi threw himself across Trig; Kira did likewise, using a net of fibers from the Soft Blade to hold them in place.

She counted the seconds in her head: One, two, three, four, five, six, seven—

The floor buckled and the direction of the wind reversed as the shockwave hit, louder and more powerful than a thousand claps of thunder. With it came a wave of suffocating heat. The towers swayed and groaned—chunks of walls flying free—and streamers of dirt blasted through the howling streets. Debris filled the air, deadly as any bullet. Dozens of the fragments shotgunned the rubble they huddled behind. Beneath her arm, Kira saw the cratered body of the pillbug blown away into the dark.

She glanced up. A gigantic mushroom cloud rose above the mountain, climbing toward the stratosphere. The pillar of nuclear fury was staggeringly huge; before it, she felt smaller than she ever had before.

If not for the protection of the mountain, they would all be dead.

She released Falconi and Trig from the net of fibers. Falconi said, “Was that—”

“The Ilmorra’s gone,” said Koyich.

The bulk of the explosion would have come from the antimatter stored within the shuttle’s Markov Drive. What now? Things had just gone from bad to apocalyptically bad.

As the howl of the wind began to subside, they got to their feet. Trig was still twitching; Kira could tell he didn’t have long to live.

The Jellies had gathered close around them during the blast. Now Tschetter stood next to one, and she seemed to be speaking to it, although Kira heard nothing.

The squid started to move toward Trig.

Falconi hissed and lifted his grenade launcher, and Kira crouched, extruding razor-sharp blades from her fingers. “Stay the fuck away or I’ll blast you to pieces,” said the captain.

“My companions say they can help,” said Tschetter.

“Is that why they shot him?”

Tschetter made a regretful expression. “It was a mistake.”

“Sure. And just who the fuck are you?” Falconi’s nostrils were flared, his eyes narrowed and savage.

The woman’s back stiffened. “Major Ilina Tschetter of the UMCI, human and loyal citizen of the League of Allied Worlds.”

“She’s the one I told you about,” Kira muttered to Falconi.

“From the Extenuating Circumstances?”

Kira nodded, keeping her gaze fixed on Tschetter and the Jellies.

Falconi seemed unimpressed. “How—”

Nielsen put a hand on his shoulder. “Trig’s not going to make it if you don’t let them help.”

“Make up your mind, Falconi,” said Koyich. “We don’t have time to be dicking around.”

After a moment, Falconi shook off Nielsen’s hand and backed away from Trig, still pointing Francesca at the aliens. “Fine. But if they kill him, I’ll shoot them, no questions asked.”

Outside, the mushroom cloud continued to climb.

Kira kept the blades on her fingers as the squid crawled over to Trig. Moving as precisely and delicately as any surgeon, the Jelly used its tentacles to disassemble Trig’s power armor until the kid lay on the crumbled floor in nothing but his skinsuit and oxygen mask. Then the Jelly wrapped a single, thick tentacle around him, and within seconds, a thick, gelatinous substance began to ooze from its suckers.