She was about to detach herself from the shield when more boots sounded ahead of them, at the other end of the concourse.

Before Kira could react, the lights flickered and went out, save for small emergency floods along the floor, and the deck rippled like a wave, causing everyone but Kira and Itari to stagger and fall.

An industrial crash of crumpling metal echoed through the concourse, and a dark dart of veined hull punched through the decking farther up the main hallway, past the newly arrived Marines. Pressure alarms shrieked, and from a weeping cleft in the side of the intruding spaceship poured dozens of scrambling nightmares.

The heavy chatter of cycling machine guns filled the air, along with the electric snap of discharging lasers as the Marines engaged the grotesque invaders.

“Shi-bal!” cried Hwa-jung.

Kira shouted and drove the shield forward, plowing past the limp weight of the troops she’d incapacitated. If the nightmares realized who and what she was, they’d all converge on her. She half trotted, half walked the shield across the floor, and for the moment, she stopped adding material to it, her only concern to escape.

She turned, pivoting the shield around Falconi and the others so her back was to the concourse exit and the terminal beyond. Then she retreated, step by step, until the edges of the shield banged into the wall on either side of the doorway.

Moving quickly, she pulled the shield in toward herself, collapsing it into a dense cap over the doorway. She secured it to the floor, ceiling, and walls with twisted pieces of metal, making it so the only practical way to remove it would be by cutting.

Falconi pounded her on the shoulder. “Leave it!” he shouted.

A boom echoed through the terminal as a grenade detonated on the other side of the barrier. A moment later, Marines began to bang on it, producing a muffled din.

The shield would hold, but not for very long.

Kira extricated the suit from the material, and as she did, she felt diminished, reduced to her normal sense of size.

Whirling around, she saw the others had already crossed the small terminal and were forcing open the doors to a maglev car.

From the ceiling came a man’s voice: “This is Udo Grammaticus, stationmaster of this installation. Cease resisting, and I guarantee you won’t be harmed. This is your final warning. There are twenty power troopers outside your—”

He kept talking, but Kira tuned him out. She jogged over to the maglev car as Falconi said, “Can we use it?”

“Aside from the lights, all power’s been cut,” said Hwa-jung.

“So we can’t leave?” said Nielsen.

Hwa-jung grunted. “Not like this. Maglev won’t work.”

“There must be another way into the docking ring,” said Vishal.

“How?” said Sparrow. “We’re moving waaay too fast to just jump over. Maybe Kira or the Jelly could make it, but the rest of us would get turned into a bloody smear. It’s a fucking dead end.”