“Please stand away from the door so I may close it and depart,” the ship said. It was a neutral voice, in a range that could have been that of a male or female human. Humans were one of the few races that used voice command technology, and it was usually pitched in their voices. Bland space jazz began to play from speakers overhead.

“Not yet. We’ve got more people coming,” she snapped.

The music’s volume dimmed, though it continued. “Please stand away from the door so I may close it and depart.”

“Misbegotten child of a comet, no!”

“Closing door in thirty seconds.”

“I order you not to!” Finally, she saw Dabry’s head surging through the crowds toward her. “That Ettilite and everyone with him, they’re ours, don’t fire on them!”

“Closing door in twenty seconds.”

Niko looked around for something, anything to jam in the door. She glanced out again.

There was no one following behind Dabry.

“Sky Momma scour your soul!” she swore.

“Closing door in ten seconds.” The music surged back to its original volume.

Dabry barely made it, pounding up the ramp even as it began to swing closed, making him stumble forward into Niko.

“The others?” she said urgently.

He shook his head, looking dazed. “I’ve never seen anything like it. We were on an outer corridor, and it was like something clawed at the station, trying to get at us. I was a few steps behind, managed to go sideways and into a hall with an air lock at the corner.”

She touched her forehead to his. “Not your fault.”

“All of them,” he said with a sob. Agony wound his voice tight to the breaking point. “Every single one.”

She held him, head to head, for a long moment before she let him go. “We’ve got some still alive, Sergeant.”

He drew a long, shuddering breath before he began the labor of hauling himself to his feet. “Very well, sir.”

“Please remove your shoes before continuing farther,” the ship said firmly, “and place them in the containment rack.”

Inside the door was an open chamber perhaps twice the size of the cargo lift they had ridden to get there. Hallways led in opposite directions from one another, twisting oddly and resembling giant throats, a thought that Niko kept to herself.

Following one of these as it led its way along inside the ship, they found the overall interior even more spacious than it had appeared from the outside. The rooms maintained the organic feel and smell, as though they were pods grown inside some vast organic body, which technically they were. Core doors were clustered with lichen and fungi, and shaggy growths underfoot caressed whatever they could touch, a sensation that Niko both enjoyed and found unsettling.

Skidoo kept pausing to savor it. “I like this ship,” she said.