“Got it,” said Sparrow. In her armor, she couldn’t really hide; she filled most of a doorway, like a giant metal gorilla, faceless behind a mirrored helmet. Likewise, Falconi stood mostly exposed in his own set of armor, although he kept his visor semi-transparent, the better to see.

Bang!

Kira felt a spike of compressed air in her ears, even through the suit’s mask. She worked her jaw, a dull ache forming along the base of her skull.

Smoke appeared at what had been the bottom of the shaft and that, in weightlessness, now appeared to be the far end of a long tube. The Wallfish’s pressure alarm began to blare.

A breath of wind touched Kira’s cheek: the most dangerous of sensations on a spaceship.

Around her, the crew started firing with blasters and slug throwers as the dark, many-armed shapes of the Jellies swarmed into the central shaft. Graspers, desperate and despised. The aliens didn’t stay to fight. Instead, they darted across the tube and disappeared down another corridor.

Seconds later, an unseen pressure door by the cargo hold slammed shut with an ominous clang, and the wind ceased.

“Shit, they’re heading toward engineering,” said Falconi, peering down the shaft.

“They can incapacitate the whole ship from there,” said Hwa-jung.

As if to prove her point, the lights flickered again and then went out entirely, leaving them bathed in the dull red radiance of the backups.

Then the most unexpected sight caught their attention: a single tentacle unfurled from within a doorway at the end of the shaft. Wrapped in its deadly embrace was the transparent cryo box that contained none other than Runcible, still frozen in hibernation.

Even through his visor, Kira saw Falconi’s face contort with rage. “Goddammit, no,” he growled, and was about to launch himself aftward when Nielsen caught his arm.

“Captain,” she said, matching his intensity. “It’s a trap. They’ll overpower you.”

“But—”

“Not a chance.”

Sparrow joined them. “She’s right.”

The only one who could do anything was Kira, and she knew it. Was she really going to risk her life for the pig? Well, why not? A life was a life, and she had to face the Jellies at some point. Might as well be now. She just wished it didn’t have to happen on the Wallfish.…

The tentacle gently waved the pig back and forth in an unmistakable invitation.

“Those fuckers,” said Falconi. He half raised the grenade launcher, and then stopped. “Can’t get a good shot.”

The emergency lights failed then, leaving them in pure and unfriendly darkness for several heartbeats. Via infrared, Kira could still make out the shape of her surroundings, and she noticed an odd confluence of EM fields along the shaft—swirling fountains of violet force.

“Plasma containment field failing,” Morven announced. “Please evacuate immediately. Repeat, please—”

Hwa-jung groaned.

The lights snapped back on, first red, and then the normal, full-spectrum glare of the standard strips, bright enough to hurt. A faint tremor shook the plating of the walls, and then booming through the Wallfish came an enormous bellowing voice: