He didn’t understand.

  “Joseph Cross. I’m trapped.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “You can’t stop it.”

  Joseph forced himself to back up. To separate himself from the river. To withdraw from the pool of knowing. He looked around, remembering what Rose had told him. The membrane was potentially part of a bigger consciousness. Was this it? It called itself Devourer, and it looked as though it covered the world he was seeing. Did it want Pioneer to get off the planet? Or to bring the membrane already on the ship somewhere else?

  What did the word trapped mean to an entity that could stretch itself across all that was?

  “Joseph Cross.”

  “Stop saying my name,” Joseph ordered. It didn’t matter what this was or where this was. He needed to find a way out. But how had he come to this place? Was there a way out? Was he still himself, or was this where all of the aliens’ victims ended up?

  Was he the entity’s puppet now?

  “Iagorth. You can’t stop it. I need your ship.”

  “Shut up!” Joseph growled.

  “Joseph Cross. You can’t stop it. Joseph Cross. I’m trapped. Joseph Cross. Joseph Cross. Joseph Cross. Iagorth. I’m trapped. You can’t stop it. I need your ship. I need your ship. Joseph Cross.”

  Joseph closed his eyes, the entity's repetitive voice growing louder and louder in his mind, the words beginning to blend into the chaotic cacophony he had heard the first time he entered the alien vessel. Had it been speaking to him then, and he just couldn’t make out all of the words.

  “I hunger.”

  It was the only other words he understood. He was drowning in its voice, its screams, its lust for control. The oily black membrane pooled around him, beginning to wash over his feet and climb up his legs, threatening to suffocate him and leaving his already pounding headache throbbing even harder.

  Pounding headache?

  He forced open his eyes. The alien world was gone. The voice silent. The real threat was in front of him, the tentacled monster engaged with Bourne and Hoffman, who were doing their best to keep it distracted.

  West crouched beside him, keeping him from collapsing.

  “Joe,” she said. “Joe, can you hear me?”

  “Keesha,” Joseph said. “What’s going on?”

  She lifted her sword, a thick black mass speared to the end of it. “I don’t know how close this thing came to killing you.”

  “Pretty close, I think. Did I hurt anyone?”

  “No. You just dropped to the deck and started screaming. It sounded like you said Iagorth.”

  “Devourer of the Relyeh.”

  “What?”

  Joseph shook his head, trying to get the memory out of it. He watched Alesso go at the alien from the side, pounding it with plasma bolts. Three tentacles launched out at her, one of them catching her in the chest and throwing her across the hangar. She hit the far bulkhead hard, slumping against it and remaining still.

  “It wants the ship,” he said. “We need to stop it.”

  “We’re trying, Prime,” West replied. “Burning this thing is like trying to melt steel with a lighter.”

  “Is it me?” Joseph asked. “Or does it look like it’s growing?”

  “I was thinking the same thing,” Morales said. “It’s definitely bigger. Maybe when we burn the big one, that’s bad?”

  Plasma was effective against the smaller aliens. It seemed to be fueling the larger one, allowing it to grow as though it could feed on the heat and energy of the gas. Joseph almost laughed. The only weapons they had were plasma rifles.

  They had no way to stop the entity. Iagorth.

  You can’t stop it. I need your ship.

  The creature turned on Bourne. Trapped in the open between the alien and the hangar doors, he had nowhere to run, and no option but to keep pouring plasma into the creature. Hoffman tried to work herself in to help, but she was only going to fuel it more.

  “Guardians, cease fire!” Joseph said. “I repeat, cease fire!”

  “What?” Hoffman said. “Prime, it’s—”

  “It’s growing,” Joseph said. “We need another way.” His eyes darted around the hangar. There were no extra weapons in here. Even the extra spacecraft were transports, not fighters.

  The alien wasn’t waiting around for him to figure it out. It darted toward Bourne the moment he stopped firing, stretching out a tentacle to grab him. He pulled his sidearm and started sinking bullets into the creature, but they barely had an effect. The alien grabbed him, curling its tentacle to bring the Guardian to its awful maw.

  “I’m up,” West said. She glanced over at Joseph. “If I don’t make it back, I—”

  “I know,” Joseph replied, cutting her off.

  His chest tightened as she sprang away on her augments, the powerful replacement limbs carrying her across the hangar to the alien in three long leaps. She threw herself at it, sword flashing as she sliced away one of the tentacles, desperately trying to reach Bourne.

  Joseph pulled himself to his feet, a fresh wave of adrenaline washing through him. “Duckling, get to the hangar door controls.”

  “Prime? You said we couldn’t suck it out.”

  “Just do it. Fatcat, hit it with everything you’ve got. Crisis, Queen, you too. Slow it the hell down, whatever it takes.”

  “Wilco,” Morales said, rushing forward and hitting it with another stream of plasma. A pair of tentacles stretched out for the Guardian, but he burned them away before they could connect. At the same time, West finally reached Bourne, slicing the tentacle holding him only a meter from the alien’s awful mouth. It lunged forward, mouth stretching toward her. She managed to swing one of her legs up and around, wedging it between its teeth.

  “Crisis, shoot it!” she said. Bourne emptied his sidearm into the mouth, the bullets tearing into its main form.

  Joseph lost track of the fight then. He sprinted away, toward the rear of the hangar.

  “It’s not working,” Bourne said over the comm.

  “Shit!” West shouted. “My leg!”

  Joseph looked back to see her fall to the floor, the augment crushed by the thing’s mouth. It reached for her with a tentacle, only to get driven back as Alesso rushed back from the side, recovered from the hit that had knocked her out.

  He made it to the loader, grabbing the ladder that led up to the massive machine’s cab. Climbing inside, he tapped on the starter button, angered when a red light flashed. He swiped his ID over it, and it turned green and he tried again.

  The vehicle’s reactor started to whine, a deep-throated hum that grew louder as it powered up. “Duckling, are you in position?”

  “I’m ready, Prime,” she replied.

  “On my mark. Crisis, Queen, get away from it. Fatcat, Alesso, cover fire. Hit it as hard as you can.”

  The Guardians all reacted, Bourne trying to drag West away from the alien while Morales and Alesso poured plasma into it from both sides. Joseph watched the dashboard of the loader, waiting for the reactor ready light to turn green.

  “Come on,” he said impatiently. “Let’s go already, you son of a bitch.”

  The alien turned on Morales, a quick strike from a tentacle knocking him away. He rolled to his knees, bringing his rifle up again. “Prime, I’m dry,” he announced, dropping the rifle and pulling his sidearm.

  “I’m out!” Alesso shouted a moment later, swapping plasma for her pistol too.

  The alien drove toward Bourne and West, grabbing Bourne by the arm and yanking him up. Three other tentacles wrapped around him, tearing away his limbs as he screamed through the comm.

  “Nooo!” West cried, getting her plasma rifle up and firing it into the alien, She couldn’t stand, but she pushed herself away with her remaining leg, sliding along the deck on her rear.

  “Come on!” Joseph shouted, pounding the dash of the loader with his fist.

  The light turned green.

  He dropped the stick into drive and slammed his foot down on the accelerator. The machine wasn’t designed to do anything fast, and it started forward slowly, shuddering into motion.

  “Duckling, open it!”

  “Roger,” Hoffman replied. Red klaxons began flashing in the hangar, a warning they were opening the doors without removing the air.

  The alien reached for West, getting around her fire and grabbing her remaining leg. For a moment, Joseph was sure she was going to die, and he screamed in anger and frustration, foot all the way to the floor, fist hitting the dashboard as if that would make the loader move faster.

  Gunfire echoed through the hangar, a stream of bullets shredding the limb holding her. Joseph’s head snapped to the right, looking for the shooter.

  The smaller hatch was open. Siraj, Grant and the other surviving members of the bridge crew were there, all of them armed and firing on the alien.

  The hangar bay door began sliding open, the air starting to rush out. The loader continued to gain speed while the alien turned its attention to the newcomers.

  Reaching to the side, Joseph found the controls for the crane attached to the loader. He dropped the large grappling hook and its line from the back of the vehicle, letting it spool out along the floor as he approached the entity.

  “Joseph Cross!” it shouted in his head, so loudly he nearly lost control. “I need your ship. You can’t stop it!”

  The alien continued pivoting, finally noticing the loader bearing down on it. Joseph found West on the floor ahead, the suction from space pulling her toward the hangar doors and out into space. He clenched his jaw, shoving open the door into the cab with his elbow.

  “Joseph Cross!”

  Tentacles snapped out toward the loader, catching the front of the huge machine. The alien began to climb it, throwing itself forward toward the cab, the huge mouth slamming into the protective glass.

  Joseph stared into the alien’s open mouth, to a dark and bubbling pit of ooze in the center of the creature. The river. He could almost feel it from his place outside, calling to him.

  He wanted to touch it again. To feel its crispness and the immensity of its being. He wanted to dive in, to submerge and drown.

  He also wanted it to die.

  “Get off my ship, you son of a bitch!” Joseph shouted, throwing himself sideways and out of the cab. He bounced off the side of the loader, hitting the floor just ahead of West.

  The loader kept going, driving straight for the open hangar doors. The alien began climbing over it, still trying to get to him. Bullets poured into it, the force of the impacts slowing its momentum, holding it to the loader.

  Joseph grabbed West around the waist, screaming as he fought against the pressure of the fleeing air, every muscle burning as he pulled her with him, not back but sideways, closer to the loader.

  The vehicle reached the edge of the hangar, velocity carrying it off the deck, off the gravity coils and out into space. It began to rise immediately, floating up and out, the alien still clinging to it.

  “Duckling, close it!” Joseph shouted.

  The loader cleared the bay as the doors began to close again. The line from the crane was still spooling out from it, the heavy hook held by gravity, for the moment remaining in place. Joseph got a hand around the thick cable, holding on as the oxygen continued to diminish, the doors slowly sliding shut. Then the length of cable ran out, pulling taut against the deck. Joseph let go, rolling to the side as it snapped off the floor, yanked out into space by the loader. The hook slid across the deck and out, vanishing into the black as the hangar bay door slammed shut.

  “Joseph Cross. You can’t stop it.”

  The voice screamed into his helmet one last time as it faded away.

  And then it was gone.

  61

  Grant

  Pioneer. Sick bay. 11.13.2052. 1300 hours.

  Tyson entered the sick bay with Commander Siraj, Guardians Morales and Hoffman tight on their heels. They didn’t stop at the control desk, instead angling directly for the door leading to the treatment rooms, the maneuver drawing no complaint from the nurse on duty at the desk.

  They passed into the short corridor. All of the rooms were listed as occupied, though the door to the first room was currently open, its occupant missing from the bed inside.

  “You can’t keep Sarge down,” Morales said behind Tyson, speaking to Prime’s absence from his room. “He’s probably checking in on the others.”

  It was the reason Tyson had come. To check in on his people. It had taken him longer to get back here than he had wanted, but the fallout of their near-catastrophic encounter had taken most of the day to deal with, and by the end of it he had been too exhausted to return and make the rounds, falling instead into one of the general berthing bunks to sleep for a few hours.

  Of course, the other injured needed rest too. He doubted his presence was missed in the ensuing hours.

  The ship was clean, as near as they could tell, save for the single small membrane sample Doctor Rose had locked away in her lab. Morales had refused to rest until he set every last one of the Dragonflies to run constant sweeps through the corridors, and Chief Oslo had assisted by reprogramming their software to identify anything that looked even remotely like the alien as a potential threat. Meanwhile, Commander Siraj had commandeered every available resource from the bridge and engineering, enlisting them as a pseudo-Guardian militia ready to combat anything the drones found.

  The drones had traversed the outer passageways three times already without a single hit. It was good news, tempered by the knowledge that the enemy could hide in the air vents or access panels, or anywhere else it could squeeze flat or wrap around. With its ability to shape itself however it needed to get where it wanted to go—so long as that space wasn’t completely sealed—there were a lot of potential hiding places on a ship the size of Pioneer, even if it didn’t have access to Research or Metro.

  Every instinct in Tyson begged him to take Doctor Rose and throw her out an airlock for her role in creating the chaos. In an ironic twist, the aftermath had left her the most important person on the ship. It was Rose and her team who were working on a means to locate any potential stowaways, using both the sample’s genetic markers and her work with the trife to develop a way to draw any remaining membranes into the open. At least she seemed remorseful and contrite about her part, eager to solve the problems placed before her to ensure the ship would make it to their destination, still so many years away.

  The door to the last treatment room opened and Doctor Okoye stepped out. His face was as relaxed as Tyson had seen, his eyes bright, white teeth a contrast to his dark skin as he smiled widely.

  “I take it you have good news, Doctor?” Tyson asked as Okoye approached.

  “Yes, Captain. As good as we could hope for. Guardian Alesso has three broken ribs, but I’ve already set them and started the accelerated bone regrowth treatments. She’ll be back to full health within a few days.” He turned and pointed to the room across from Alesso’s. “Guardian Madani’s hand was too damaged to save, but we did manage to find a single inventory of augments packed into the rear of our storage compartment. I had been told by the Admiral they were in short supply, but it seems he snuck them in, and good thing. I’ve scheduled her operation for tomorrow morning. Until then, she’s pain free and resting comfortably.”

  “That’s good to hear.”

  “Yes. They’ll both make full recoveries.”

  “Captain, do you mind if I go in to see them?” Hoffman asked.

  “Doctor?” Tyson asked.

  “Go right ahead, I’m sure they’ll both be glad for visitors.”

  Hoffman moved around them, entering Madani’s room first.

  “What about Prime?” Morales asked.

  Okoye looked at the first room’s open door. “Doesn’t his absence answer that question? I had to sedate him to keep him in his room as long as I did. He was physically exhausted and needed a patch for the cut on his back, and I’m sure he’ll be sore for a few days, but he’s otherwise in good health.”

  He walked past them to the second door, knocking before pushing it open.

  Tyson smiled when he saw Joseph sitting in a chair at West’s bedside, in nearly the same position West had been in for him. Joseph’s face was bruised, his eyes tired, but there was a lightness to his expression that matched Okoye’s.

  “Captain Grant,” Joseph said, not even trying to stand.

  “Prime Cross,” Tyson replied, smiling. “It’s good to see you up and about. Again.”

  Joseph laughed. “How’s your arm, sir?”

  Grant looked down at his arm, currently in a sling. “A minor dislocation, and a couple of torn ligaments. It’ll heal.” He shifted his attention to West, awake and alert in the bed. Her second augment was removed, leaving her sheets flattening out just beneath her thighs. “Second West, how are you feeling?”

  “Like I got hit by a train, sir,” she replied. “I’ll be fine, so long as Doctor Okoye can scrounge up a pair of legs for me.”

  Tyson glanced back at Okoye. “You have inventory, don’t you?”

  Okoye made a face. “Of hands and arms, Captain. They’re much more common to replace.” He looked at West. “My team is still going through inventory. I’m hopeful. If we don’t come up with something, we may be able to convert the arms with Chief Oslo’s help. They won’t be pretty, but they could get you walking again.”

  Joseph’s smile faded, his face turning sour.

  “It’s okay, Sarge,” West said. “I’ll take whatever I can get and make the most of it. I’m lucky to be alive.”

  “We all are, thanks to you two,” Tyson said. Morales coughed behind him. “Yes, and of course you and the other Guardians, Guardian Morales.”

  “Thank you, Captain,” Morales said.

  “You saved our lives, Captain,” Joseph said. “If you hadn’t turned up with the cavalry when you did.”

  “That was Commander Siraj’s idea,” Tyson replied. “She deserves all of the credit for that.”

  Joseph looked at Siraj. “Thank you, Commander.”

  She blushed slightly at the compliment. “It was the least I could do for you and your team. The concept of the Guardians is good on paper, but given the circumstances, you can’t do everything yourselves.”