The Marine’s armor locked up and began to fall. Kira pulled it to the side, landed inside biocontainment, and rolled across her shoulders and back to her feet. None of the Marines inside were able to triangulate her exact location, but that didn’t stop them from firing blindly toward the spot she’d been.

Too slow. A laser blast seared a hole through the back of a chair next to her, but Kira was already moving, throwing tendrils across the room and snaring each of the Marines.

Don’t kill, she told the Soft Blade, hoping against hope it would heed.

A clutch of heartbeats later, and the other Marines dropped to the floor. The weight of their armor crushed tables, smashed shelves, and dented the deck.

“Get ’em all?” Sparrow asked, poking her head in.

Kira allowed her invisibility to fade and nodded. Deeper into the room was another door leading to what she recognized as an impressively large decon chamber. Past that was a third pressure door, which she assumed opened to the isolation chamber where Itari was being held.

“Watch my back,” she said.

“Roger.”

It might have been possible to get the access codes off the Marines, but Kira saw no point in wasting time. Hurrying forward, she extended her arms and allowed the Soft Blade to flow out and rip open the decon door.

At the other end of the chamber, she saw Itari through the pressure door window. The Jelly was sitting with its tentacles curled underneath it, like the legs of a dead spider.

A flash of relief passed through Kira. At least they were in the right place.

She set herself against the pressure door and again allowed the Soft Blade to worm its way into the mechanism and then to tear.

Clank. The lock broke. Pulling and pushing with the xeno, Kira rolled the door back.

A questioning scent reached her from the Jelly as it unfurled its tentacles. [[Itari here: Idealis?]]

[[Kira here: If you truly want peace, we must leave this place.]]

[[Itari here: Are these two-forms our enemies?]]

[[Kira here: No, but they do not know better. Do not kill them, I ask you. But do not let yourself be killed either.]]

[[Itari here: As you will, Idealis.]]

Kira left to rejoin the others outside biocontainment, and she heard Itari follow with a dry-leaf shuffle of tentacles.

“We good?” Falconi asked as she, Sparrow, and Itari emerged from the smoke. Veera had found a jacket somewhere in the biocontainment offices and was pulling it on, covering herself.

“Yup,” said Sparrow. “Boobs, works every time. Everyone falls for them.”

“Let’s get the hell out of here,” said Kira.

Orsted rumbled around them, and Vishal said, “Heavens preserve us, yes.”

“Veera! Jorrus!” said Falconi.

“Yessir?”

“Still nothing from Gregorovich?”

“Nothing.”

“Jamming?”

“No. They have him in lockdown.”

“He’ll be fighting mad,” said Hwa-jung.

“Good. We can use that,” said Falconi. He rounded on the rest of them. “Right. We’ll go up the main passage. Anyone shows up, break right, take cover. Don’t let ’em use you as hostages. Kira, you’ll have to deal with any opposition. None of us have weapons.”