“Roger that,” said Falconi. “… And thank you, Captain. We owe you one. Over.”

“There’ll be drinks to go around when this is done, Captain. Over,” said Akawe.

As the line went dead, Sparrow said, “I’d heard about the RD Fifty-Twos. Never got to play with them, though.”

Falconi leaned back from the holo. He ran his hands through his bristly hair, scrubbing at his scalp with the tips of his fingers, and then said, “Okay. We’ve got some breathing room. Not much, but a little.”

“How long until we can jump out?” Kira asked.

“At our current two g’s of thrust,” whispered Gregorovich, “we shall gain the freedom to depart this hallowed graveyard in exactly twenty-five hours.”

That’s too long. Kira didn’t have to say it; she could see the others were thinking it as well. The nightmares and the Jellies had only taken a few hours to reach Nidus after dropping out of FTL. If more of them decided to pursue the Wallfish, they’d have no trouble overtaking it.

“Gregorovich,” said Falconi, “any chance of a solar flare?”

Smart. Like all red dwarfs, Bughunt would be prone to high variability, which meant enormous and unpredictable solar flares. A large enough outburst would disrupt the magnetic fields used in the exhaust nozzles of their fusion drives and keep the Jellies or the nightmares from overtaking the Wallfish. Assuming they hadn’t found an effective way to shield themselves.

“None at the moment,” said Gregorovich.

“Dammit,” Falconi muttered.

“We’ll just have to hope Akawe and Tschetter’s Jellies can keep everyone off our tail,” said Sparrow.

Falconi looked like he’d just bitten down on a rock. “I don’t like it. I really don’t like it. If even one of those assholes comes after us, we’re going to be in a world of trouble.”

Sparrow shrugged. “Not sure what we can do about it, Captain. The Wallfish ain’t like a horse. She won’t go any faster if you hit her.”

A thought occurred to Kira: the malformed corruption that was the nightmares had been able to make use of the Jelly tech, so … why couldn’t they?

The idea was so outlandish, she nearly dismissed it. Only because of the desperate nature of their circumstances did she say, “What about the Jelly, Itari?”

“What about it?” said Falconi.

“Maybe it could help us.”

Hwa-jung’s eyes narrowed, and she sounded outright hostile as she said, “How do you mean?”

“I’m not sure,” said Kira. “But maybe it can tweak our Markov Drive so we can jump to FTL sooner.”

Hwa-jung cursed. “You want to let that thing tinker with the Wallfish? Gah!”

“It’s worth a try,” said Sparrow, looking at Falconi.

He grimaced. “Can’t say I like it, but if the Jelly can help us, we have to give it a shot.”

Hwa-jung looked profoundly unhappy. “No, no, no,” she muttered. Then, louder: “You do not know what it could do. It could break every system in the ship. It could blow us up. No! The Jelly doesn’t know our computers or our—”