Flesh joined with flesh in a frantic mating as the three viewpoints became one. No longer were they grasper or two-form or Soft Blade. Now they were something else entirely.
It was a malformed partnership, born of haste and ignorance. The parts did not fit, though they were stitched together at the smallest level, and they revolted against themselves and against reality itself. Then within the cross-joined mind of the new flesh, madness took hold. Reasoned thought no longer dwelt therein, only the anger that had been hers, and the fear too. Panic was the result, and further dysregulation.
For they were incomplete. The fibers that had joined them had been flawed, imperfect, poisoned by her emotions. As was the seed, so was the fruit.
They struggled to move, and their contradictory urges caused them to flail without purpose.
Then the light of a double sun bathed them with heat as the Extenuating Circumstances detonated, destroying the Tserro—the grasper ship—at the same time.
The blast blew them away from the shining disk of the nearby moon, a piece of flotsam driven before a storm. For a time, they drifted in the cold of space, at the mercy of momentum. Soon though, their new skin gave them the means to move, and they stabilized their spin and looked anew upon the naked universe.
Unceasing hunger gnawed at them. They desired to eat and grow and spread beyond this barren place, as their flesh commanded. As the broken pattern dictated. And coupled with that ravenous appetite, a constant roar of fury and fear: an instinctual rejection of the extinction of self, inherited from her confrontation with Carr/Qwon.
They needed food. And power. But first food to feed the flesh. They spread themselves wide to catch the light of the system’s star and flew the short distance to the rocky rings around the great gas giant in whose gravity well they resided.
The rocks contained the raw materials they sought. They gorged themselves upon stone, metal, and ice—used it to grow and grow and grow. Power was plentiful and easy to acquire in space; the star provided all they needed. They extended themselves across the vastness and converted every ray of light they captured into useful forms of energy.
The system could have been a home for them; there were moons and planets fit for life. But their ambition was greater. They knew of other places, other planets, where life teemed in the billions and trillions. A banquet of flesh, and power also, waiting to be claimed and converted and put to use in service to their overriding cause: expansion. With such resources at their disposal, their growth would be exponential. They would spread like fire among the stars—spread and spread and spread until they filled this galaxy and others beyond.
It would take time, but time they had. For they were undying now. Their flesh could not stop growing, and so long as a single speck of it remained, still then their seeds would spread and flourish.…
But there was an obstacle to their plan. A problem of engineering that they could not overcome, not with all their flesh nor all their gathered power.
They did not know how to build the device that would allow them to slip between the fabric of space and travel faster than the speed of light. They knew of the device, but no part of their mind knew the specifics of construction.
Which meant they were trapped in the system unless they were willing to venture forth at slower-than-light speeds, and they were not. Their impatience compelled them to stay, for they knew others would come. Others bearing the needed device.
So they bided their time, and waited and watched and continued to prepare.
…
They did not have long to wait. Three flashes along the boundary of the system alerted them to the arrival of grasper ships. Two were so foolish as to come close to investigate. The flesh was ready. They struck! They seized the ships, and in a rage, emptied them of their contents, absorbed the bodies of the graspers, and made the vessels their own.
The third ship escaped their maw, but that did not matter. They had what they needed: the machines that would allow them to bridge the chasms between the stars.
So they left to feed their hunger. First to the nearest grasper system: a newly settled colony, weak and undefended. There they found a station orbiting in the darkness: a ripe fruit ready for plucking. They crashed into it and made themselves part of the structure. The information contained within the computers became their own, and they grew confident in their ambition.
Their confidence was premature. The graspers sent more ships after them: ships that burned and blasted and cut away their flesh. No matter. They had what they needed, though not what they wanted.
They fled back into interstellar space. This time, they chose a system free of graspers or two-forms. But not barren of all life. One of the planets was a festering boil of living creatures busy eating other living creatures. So the Maw descended and devoured them all, converted them to new forms of flesh.
There then, they held. There they ate and increased and built in a heated frenzy. Soon the surface of the planet was covered and the sky dotted with the ships they were building.
No, not building … growing.
With the ships, they also grew servants, in substance based upon half-remembered templates from their binding flesh, in shape based upon a grafting of forms suggested by the different parts of their mind. The results were crude and unlovely, but they obeyed as required and that was sufficient. A horde of creatures made to carry out the dictates of the pattern. Life self-sufficient and capable of propagating itself. But some of the servants were more—pieces of the Maw, given a seed of their own flesh, that their essence might travel among the stars.
When the strength of their forces was sufficient, they sent them forth to recapture the graspers’ system, and to attack others besides. The hunger was yet unsated, and the fear-driven anger of their two minds still no less.
A season of feasting followed. The graspers fought back, but they were unprepared, and they were too slow to replace their fallen. The Maw had no such difficulty. Each system it struck, it quickly established a permanent foothold and began the process of spreading across every available planet.
Progress brought their servants closer to the space of the two-forms. The flesh of the Maw spanned seven systems now, and it felt confident in its strength. So it sent its minions against the two-forms, to drive them back and begin the process of conversion.
And then, when least expected, they had heard a cry in the dark: Stop it! And they recognized the signal and the voice as well. The first belonged to the makers of the flesh, now long vanished, and the second to her, Kira Navárez.
Again she saw her face contort with fear and anger as she fired the pistol.…
The Maw roared, and they told their servants: Find the forgotten flesh! Break it! Smash it! EAT IT!
3.
*Kira … Where are you?… Kira?*
Kira screamed as she returned to herself.
The humanoid nightmare still had the tentacle wrapped around her arm, but there was more to it than that. Black threads joined the surface of the Soft Blade to the flesh of the nightmare, and she could feel the creature’s consciousness pressing against her, seeking to blot her out. The nightmare’s skin was eating into her own as it assimilated the Soft Blade. It wasn’t a process she could stop by force of will; the xeno didn’t recognize the nightmare as an enemy. Rather, it seemed to want to assimilate with the creature’s broken flesh, to become one again with its lost parts.
If she delayed, Kira knew she would die. Or least be converted into something she abhorred.
She tried to yank her arm away from the humanoid, and they spun end over end until they smacked into the deck. The flesh of the nightmare was still melting into her.
“Give up,” said the monster, mandibles clicking. “You cannot win. All will be flesssh for the mouth of many. Join usssss and be eaten.”
“No!” said Kira. She willed the Soft Blade outward, and it responded with a thousand jutting spikes, piercing the nightmare through and through. The creature shrieked and writhed
, but it did not die. Then Kira felt the spikes impaling its body dissolve and flow into the nightmare, leaving the Soft Blade thinner, smaller than before.
The tentacle had sunk deep into her arm; only the top of it was visible above the churning surface of the Soft Blade.
No! She refused to die like this. Flesh was expendable. Consciousness wasn’t.
Kira formed the suit on her left arm into a blade, and—with a yell of desperation—she cut twice.
Once through her right arm, severing it at the elbow.
Once through the nightmare, slicing it in two at the waist.
Blood fountained from the stump of her arm, but only for an instant. Then the Soft Blade closed over the raw end of the wound.
It should have hurt, but whether from adrenaline or the xeno, it didn’t.
The two halves of the nightmare flew to opposite ends of the corridor. And still the creature didn’t die; the torso half continued to move its arms and head and chitter with its mandibles, while the lower half kicked as if trying to run. Even as she watched, black tendrils emerged from the exposed surfaces of its insides, reaching and searching in an attempt to pull themselves back together.
Kira knew she was outmatched.
She looked for the alcove: there. She kicked herself over to it, grabbed Trig’s cocoon with her one hand, and then willed the Soft Blade to propel them back along the corridor, in the direction they’d been headed originally.
As they neared the end of the passage, she glanced over her shoulder at the nightmare. The two parts of the creature’s body were nearly rejoined. Then she saw the torso half lift its remaining tentacle and point the same small device at her as before.
She tried to duck her head behind her arm. Too slow.
…
…
…
A bell-like ringing filled her ears as she regained awareness. At first, she couldn’t remember who she was or where she was. She gaped at the blue-lit walls as they drifted past, trying to understand, for she was convinced something was wrong. Terribly wrong.
Her breath rushed in, and with it memory. Knowledge. Fear.
The nightmare had shot her in the head. Kira could feel a dull throb in her skull, and her neck spasmed with jolts of pain. The creature was still at the other end of the corridor, still working to rejoin its severed halves.
Boom! It fired at her again, but this time the bullet glanced off her shoulder, deflected by the hardened surface of the Soft Blade.
Kira didn’t wait to see more. Still dazed, she grabbed the wall, pulled herself and Trig around the corner at the end of the corridor, breaking the line of sight with the nightmare.
As she moved through the ship, Kira felt disconnected from reality, as if everything were happening to someone else. Sounds made little sense, and she saw rainbow-colored halos around lights.
Must have a concussion, she thought.
The things she had seen from the nightmare … They couldn’t be, and yet she knew they were. Dr. Carr and the Jelly, joined together into an abomination by the fragments of the Soft Blade blasted off her. If only she hadn’t been so consumed by her emotions during their confrontation. If only she had listened to Carr’s pleading. If only she had avoided shooting the oxygen line.… She was the mother of the Corrupted. Her actions had led to their creation, and their sins were hers. All those dead: Jellies, humans, and so many innocent life-forms on distant planets—her heart ached to think of it.
She was barely conscious of where she was going. The Soft Blade seemed to decide for her: left here, right there.…
A voice drew her from her haze: “Kira! Kira, over here! Where—”
She looked up to see Falconi hanging before her, a fierce expression on his face. The Jelly, Itari, was with him, weapons aimed at the doorway. Behind them was a large, jagged hole in the hull, big enough for a car to pass through. The dark of space showed through it, and hanging in the dark, like a gleaming gem, the Wallfish, over a hundred meters away.
With a start, Kira realized they were in vacuum. Somehow that had happened without her noticing.
“… your arm! Where—”
She shook her head, unable to find the words.
Falconi seemed to understand. He grabbed her by the waist and pulled her and Trig toward the opening in the hull. “You have to jump. They can’t get any closer. Can you—”
On the side of the Wallfish, Kira saw the airlock was open. In it, several figures moved: Nielsen and some of the Marines.
Kira nodded, and Falconi released her. She gathered her strength and then leaped into the void.
For the length of a breath, she floated in silence.
The Soft Blade adjusted her course by a few centimeters, and she flew straight into the Wallfish airlock. A Marine caught her, stopped her momentum.
Falconi followed a moment later, bringing Trig with him. The Jelly came also, somewhat to Kira’s surprise, and crowded its tentacled bulk into the airlock.
The instant the outer door closed, Falconi said, “Hit it!”
Gregorovich’s whispering voice answered, “Aye-aye, Captain. Currently hitting it.”
A surge of high-g thrust dropped them to the floor. Kira yelped as the stump of her arm banged against the inside of the airlock. Then she thought of the nightmare she’d cut in two, and fear focused her thoughts.
She looked at Falconi and said, “You have to … You have to…” She couldn’t seem to fit her tongue around the words.
“Have to what?” he said.
“You have to destroy that ship!”
Sparrow was the one to answer, her voice emanating from the intercom overhead: “Already taken care of, sweetcheeks. Hold on tight.”
Outside the airlock, there was a flash of pure white light, and then the window darkened until it was opaque. Seconds later, the Wallfish shuddered, and a series of faint pings sounded against the outer hull. Then the ship grew still again.
Kira let out her breath and allowed her head to drop back against the floor.
They were safe. For now.
CHAPTER VII
NECESSITY
1.
The inner door to the airlock rolled open. Sparrow was standing there with a rifle fitted to her shoulder, aiming it toward the Jelly at the back of the airlock. Her hair hung flat and heavy in the high-g of the Wallfish’s burn.
“What’s that thing doing here, Captain?” she said. “You want I should remove it?”
The Marines scooted back from the Jelly while keeping their own weapons trained on it. A sudden tenseness filled the air. “Falconi?” said Hawes.
“The Jelly was helping us,” said Falconi, getting to his feet. It took him noticeable effort.
[[Itari here: Strike Leader Wrnakkr ordered me to guard you, so I will guard you.]]
Kira translated, and Falconi said, “Fine. But he stays here until we get shit sorted out. Not going to have him wandering around the ship. You tell him that.”
“It,” said Kira. “Not him.”
Falconi grunted. “It. Whatever.” He slung his grenade launcher across his back and lurched out of the airlock. “I’ll be in Control.”
“Roger that,” said Nielsen, her voice muffled as she pulled off the helmet of her power armor.
The captain staggered down the corridor as fast as he could despite the ship’s thrust, and Sparrow followed close behind. “Glad you made it, knuckleheads!” she shouted over her shoulder.
Kira conveyed Falconi’s orders to the Jelly. It formed a nest with its tentacles and settled down at the end of the airlock. [[Itari here: I will wait.]]
[[Kira here: Do you need help with your injuries?]]
Nearscent of negation reached her. [[Itari here: This form will heal on its own. Help is not required.]] And Kira saw that the crack in the Jelly’s carapace was already crusted over with a hard, brown substance.
As Kira moved out of the airlock, she passed by Nielsen. “Your arm!” said the first officer.
Kira shrugged.
She was still in so much shock over what she’d learned about the nightmares that the loss didn’t seem very important. And yet she avoided looking at the absence below her elbow.
The Entropists were there, but of their whole expedition, only seven of the Marines had survived.
“Koyich? Nishu?” she said to Hawes.
The lieutenant shook his head while tending to Moros, who had a piece of humerus sticking through his skinsuit. Despite her own distress, Kira felt a pang of sorrow for the lost men.
Vishal came hurrying up to the airlock, bag in hand. His face was lined and streaked with sweat. He gave Trig’s body a worried glance and then said, “Ms. Nielsen! Ms. Kira! We thought for sure we’d lost you. It’s good to see you.”
“You too, Vishal,” Nielsen said, stepping out of her armor. “When you get a chance, we’ll need some rad-pills.”
The doctor bobbed his head. “Right here, Ms. Nielsen.” He handed a blister pack to the first officer, and then held out another to Kira.
She tried to accept with her missing hand. The doctor’s eyes widened as he noticed. “Ms. Kira!”
“It’s fine,” she said, and snatched up the pills with her other hand. It most definitely wasn’t.
Vishal continued to stare after her as she left the airlock.
Once out of sight, she stopped in the corridor and downed the pills. They stuck in her throat for an unpleasant moment. After, she just stood there. She didn’t know what she wanted to do, and for a time, her brain refused to provide an answer.
Then, she said, “Gregorovich, what’s happening?”
“Rather busy at the moment,” the ship mind answered in an unusually serious voice. “Sorry, O Spiky Meatbag.”
Kira nodded and started to trudge toward Control, each weighted step jarring her heels.
2.
Falconi was hunched over the central display along with Sparrow. In the holo, a window displayed the feed from a skinsuit headcam of someone moving about on the outside of the Wallfish’s hull.
Hwa-jung’s voice sounded through the comms: “—checking the welds. I promise. Five minutes, no more, Captain.”
To Sleep in a Sea of Stars Page 51