Distracted, she twisted awkwardly, tumbling as the Soft Blade sent her flying toward the Hierophant. A tentacle curved toward her, and some distance away, she saw Falconi’s armor-clad torso pop over the edge of the hole in the flagship’s hull. With one arm, he lifted his grenade launcher, a flash illuminated the barrel, and—

Ctein’s rocket engine exploded in a lopsided plume of burning fuel, spraying liquid fire in every direction.

Kira flinched as it splashed against her. The fuel didn’t hurt, but old instincts were hard to ignore.

The explosion knocked the Jelly back, but amazingly, it managed to keep hold of the Hierophant with the tip of one tentacle. Much to her disappointment, it appeared unhurt.

Nearscent of a vast and terrible anger washed through the nearby space.

The creature pulled itself back against the battleship and then swung one of its tentacles at Falconi. He ducked beneath the rim of the hole, and Kira saw him vanish through a door an instant before the tentacle slammed down, crushing the exposed walls and girders.

*All yours, kiddo,* Falconi said.

“Thanks. Owe you one.” Kira stopped several meters from the Hierophant and turned to face Ctein head-on. No weapons now. Only tentacles and tendrils and their two minds pitted one against the other. She prepared herself to embrace the monstrous Jelly once more, to wrestle with it until one or both of them were dead. Despite the many advantages of the Soft Blade, Kira felt no surety that she could win. All Ctein had to do was slam her against the hull of the Hierophant, and that would be the end of her.

But she wasn’t about to give up. Not now. Not after everything they’d been through. Not with everything that was at stake.

“Alright, you big ugly,” she muttered, gathering her strength. “Let’s get this over with.”

Then Kira saw it: the smallest of tears in the armored skin of one tentacle—the same tentacle, she guessed, that had been holding the rocket. Falconi’s attack had done some damage after all. The tear appeared like a thin crack in the surface of cooling lava, open to reveal the heated flesh within.

Hope blossomed within her. Small as it was, the crack was an opportunity, and in an instant, Kira imagined how she could use it to kill Ctein. Doing so would be risky, terribly risky, but she wouldn’t get any better chance.

Her lips twitched with an approximation of a smile. The solution wasn’t to stay away—it was to embrace Ctein, regardless of the cost, and join herself to it in much the same way she was joined to the Seed. The solution was in the melding of their bodies, not in the separation.