“T-minus ten seconds,” said Sparrow.

Hwa-jung pulled her lips back, made a disparaging hiss between her teeth. “Time to get a year’s worth of rads, I think.” By the wall, the two Entropists sat holding hands and rocking.

“T-minus five, four—”

“Shit! They’re turning!” exclaimed Tschetter.

“—three—”

“No time to change!” said Falconi.

“—two—”

“Aim for—”

“—one.”

Kira’s neck snapped to the side as a violent application of the RCS thrusters pushed the Wallfish off its current trajectory. Then the ship’s acceleration surged at what must have been at least 2 g’s, and she grimaced as she fought the sudden press of force.

Less than a second later, the Wallfish shuddered around them, and Kira heard several pings and pops across the hull.

On the display, a burning spike of light raced toward the Battered Hierophant. The Jelly ship had already rotated halfway around, so that its drive was hidden from view, and it was continuing to turn, reorienting itself away from the Wallfish.

“Goddammit,” muttered Falconi.

Kira watched with horrified fascination as the blaze of plasma flashed toward the Battered Hierophant. Lphet and the Knot of Minds had given them precise information on where the Hierophant’s Markov Drive was located. Hitting it and breaching the antimatter containment within the drive was their best chance of destroying the ship. Otherwise, they had no guarantee that the Casaba-Howitzer would kill Ctein.

As Itari had explained, even the smaller Jelly co-forms were hardened against heat and radiation, and as the UMC had discovered to their dismay, the creatures were incredibly hard to kill. A Jelly as large as Ctein—whatever its current form—would be far more resilient. It was, as Sparrow said, more like trying to kill a fungus than a human.

Black smoke billowed out of vents along the swollen middle of the alien ship—a threatened squid hiding itself in an ever-expanding cloud of ink—but it wouldn’t provide any protection against the howitzer’s shaped charge. Few things could.

The lance hit the belly of the Hierophant. A hemisphere of vaporized hull exploded outward along with a haze of air and water that had flashed to steam.

Sparrow groaned as the view cleared.

The nuclear charge had carved a trough as large as the Wallfish through the Battered Hierophant. Its main drive appeared disabled—propellant spurted from the nozzle, failed to ignite—but the bulk of the vessel remained intact.

Lasers and missiles shot forth from the Knot of Minds toward the three escort vessels near the Hierophant even as the trio turned to attack. The Wallfish released its own cloud of defenses, shrouding the ship in darkness. The display switched to infrared.

“Pop off another howitzer,” said Falconi.

“We’ve only got two more,” said Sparrow.

“I know. Fire it anyway.”

“Aye-aye, sir.”

Another thud echoed through the hull, and then the Casaba-Howitzer streaked away from the Wallfish as it headed to the minimum safe distance for detonation.

The missile never reached its destination. A jet of violet sparks spewed from its nose, and then its rocket sputtered out and the howitzer went tumbling harmlessly off course.