She switched her vision to infrared and saw a white-hot beam stab out from among the racks of storage units and burn a glowing, pinkie-sized hole into the material directly over her chest. The sight alarmed her until she realized the hole was far too shallow to reach her body.

Ahead of her, two Jellies—a pair of squids—lurked among the globules. They were hurrying away from her on coiled tentacles, a pair of enormous blasters gripped in their pincers and aimed her way.

Oh no you don’t, Kira thought, and sent tendrils racing out from the Soft Blade.

With them, she caught the Jellies, squeezed them, cut them, tore them into a mess of twitching flesh and spurting ichor. Maybe this was going to be easier than they’d thought.…

Over the radio, Kira heard someone gag.

“With me!” she shouted, and headed toward the white shell that would grant them access to the pressurized interior of the Battered Hierophant.

The shell refused to open as she neared, but with three quick slices of the Soft Blade, Kira severed the mechanism that kept the three-part door closed.

A hurricane of wind buffeted her as the wedges of the shell sagged apart.

The shield she’d constructed was too large to fit inside, so with some reluctance, she discarded it before allowing the xeno to propel her into the depths of the alien ship. Itari and the crew followed close behind.

3.

The interior of the Hierophant was unlike the two other Jelly ships Kira had been on. The walls were darker, more somber—colored with an assortment of greys and blues, and decorated with strips of coral-like patterns that in any other circumstance Kira would have loved to study.

She was standing inside a long, empty corridor marked with side passages, additional doorways, and alcoved tunnels leading both up and down. Now that they were again surrounded by air, Kira could hear a piercing whistle from the ruined door behind them, as well as the buzz of Hwa-jung’s drones and a howling klaxon that reminded her of whale sounds, as if the entire ship were bleating with pain, anger, and fear.

The rushing air stank with nearscent of alarm, and with it, a command that all service co-forms were to swim shadow-wise without delay. Whatever that meant.

For the briefest of moments, Kira thought that perhaps they had slipped past the Hierophant’s sensors, and perhaps they wouldn’t have to fight every step of the way.

Then, with an audible snikt, a white membrane slid across the door she’d cut open, stopping the flow of air, and—at the opposite end of the corridor—a mass of swarming limbs appeared: scores of Jellies, angry, armed, and heading straight for her and the others.

Kira’s heart rate doubled. This was the exact scenario she’d hoped to avoid. But she had the Soft Blade, and it was her arm, her sword, and her shield. The Jellies would be hard-pressed to stop her. Grabbing all sides of the corridor with a starburst of tendrils, she yanked the walls inward, forming a thick plug out of the bulkheads.