To Sleep in a Sea of Stars

by Christopher Paolini

  Shaking, Kira shoved the corpse away. In the shadowy light, the creature looked like a dead spider.

  Her forearm hung from the elbow at an unnatural angle, half-severed by a jagged gash that passed through both the suit and the muscles below. But even as she looked, black threads wove back and forth across the wound, and she felt the Soft Blade beginning to draw the gash closed and repair her arm.

  While she’d been occupied, the other Jelly had jetted back to Trig and wrapped itself around his armor. A tentacle pulled on each arm and leg, twisting and straining as the creature struggled to tear the exoskeleton (and Trig himself) into pieces.

  Another few seconds, and Kira felt sure it would.

  There was a spar close to the Jelly. She aimed the grenade launcher at it, said a quick prayer to Thule for the kid’s safety, and fired.

  BOOM!

  The shockwave tore off three of the Jelly’s tentacles, smashed open its carapace, and sprayed ichor in a sickly fountain. The severed tentacles flew away, twisting and flopping.

  Trig was knocked away as well. For a moment he didn’t move, and then his power armor jerked and reoriented itself, tiny attitude jets firing along its legs and arms.

  Kira pushed herself toward the kid, hardly able to believe that he was still alive—that either of them had survived. Don’t hurt him, don’t hurt him, don’t hurt him.… She pleaded with the Soft Blade in her mind, hoping it would listen.

  As she drew near, Trig’s visor faded clear to reveal his face. The kid was pale and sweating, and the bluish light made him appear ghastly ill.

  He stared at her, his pupils rimmed by white. “What the hell?!”

  Kira looked down to see spikes still protruding from the Soft Blade. “I’ll explain later,” she said. “You okay?”

  Trig nodded, shaking sweat off his nose. “Yeah. I had to reboot the exo. Took me this long to get it powered back up.… My, uh, wrist might be broken, but I can still—”

  Falconi’s voice broke in: *Navárez, you read? Over.* In the background, Kira heard shouts and the pop! pop! pop! of gunfire.

  “I’m here. Over,” she said.

  *Did you find Trig? Where are—*

  “He’s here. He’s fine.”

  At the same time, Trig said, “I’m fine, Captain.”

  *Then get your ass down to the starboard hold. There’s another Jelly here. Cut its way through the hull. We’ve got it pinned down, but we can’t get a good angle—*

  Kira and Trig were already moving.

  4.

  “Grab hold,” shouted Trig. Kira hooked an arm through a handle at the top of his exo, the kid fired his thrusters, and the two of them flew toward the door where they’d entered.

  This time the shell didn’t open, and they nearly crashed into it before Trig was able to stop. He raised an arm and fired a laser into the surrounding wall. With three quick cuts, he parted whatever control mechanisms the door had, and the wedges of the shell separated and hung loose, pale fluid oozing from the seals around their base.

  Kira shuddered as they flew through the opening and the tip of a wedge scraped across her back.

  Outside the room, the compulsion was insistent and seductive, impossible to ignore. It drew Kira toward a curved section of the near bulkhead—toward and past. Were she to pursue the signal, Kira knew with certainty she would find its source, and perhaps then she might have respite and some answers to the nature and origin of the Soft Blade.…

  “Thanks for coming after me,” Trig said. “Thought I was a goner.”

  She grunted. “Just go faster.”

  None of the other doors would part to let them through. It took Trig only a few seconds to slice them open, but every delay worsened Kira’s sense of dread and urgency.

  Past the panel with the blinking lights they flew. Down the circular shaft and over the room with the algae-laden water and the tiny insects with their feathery crests. And then toward the ship’s airlock chamber, where the corpse of the first Jelly floated, leaking ichor and other fluids.

  Kira separated from Trig as they reached the airlock. “Don’t shoot!” the kid shouted. “It’s us.”

  The warning was a good idea. Vishal, Nielsen, and the Entropists were waiting for them in the Wallfish antechamber, weapons trained on the open airlock. The doctor had a bandage wrapped around his leg, where the shrapnel had struck him.

  Relief swept across Nielsen’s face as they flew into view. “Hurry,” she said, moving out of the way.

  Kira followed Trig to the center of the ship, and then aft toward the lowest level and the cargo holds. The sounds of lasers and gunfire echoed as they neared, and also the screams of terrified passengers.

  At the starboard hold, they paused behind the pressure door—cautious—and then peeked around the frame.

  All the refugees huddled at one end of the hold, gathered behind crates and using them as cover, meager though it was. At the opposite end of the hold lurked the tentacled Jelly; it was pressed flat behind a crate of its own. A ragged hole, half a meter across, marred the hull next to it. The wind screaming through the opening had pulled a loose wall panel against the breach, blocking part of it. A small bit of good fortune. Through the narrowed opening, the dark of space showed.

  Falconi, Sparrow, and Hwa-jung were spread out across the middle of the hold, clinging to the support ribs and taking occasional shots at the Jelly.

  The refugees, Kira realized, couldn’t leave without being shot by the Jelly. And the Jelly couldn’t move without being shot by Falconi and his crew.

  Even with the door to the hold open, they only had a few minutes before the air ran out. No longer. Already she could feel the thinness of it, and there was a dangerous chill to the wind.

  “Stay here,” Kira said to Trig. Before he could respond, she took a breath and, despite her fear, jumped toward Falconi.

  She heard a half-dozen bzzts as the Jelly fired a laser. The alien couldn’t have missed, but she only felt one of the hits: a white-hot needle that stabbed deep into her shoulder. She barely had time to gasp before the pain began to subside.

  A burst of gunfire erupted as Falconi and Sparrow attempted to give her cover.

  As Kira landed next to Falconi, he grabbed her arm to keep her from drifting away. “Shit!” he growled. “The hell were you thinking?”

  “Helping. Here.” And she shoved the grenade launcher toward him.

  The captain’s face lit up. He snatched the weapon from her and, without a moment’s hesitation, swung it over the rib and fired at the Jelly.

  BOOM! A white flash obscured the crate hiding the Jelly. Metal fragments splattered the surrounding walls, and smoke billowed outward.

  Several of the refugees screamed.

  Sparrow twisted back toward Falconi. “Watch it! Not so close to the civvies!”

  Kira gestured at the crate. It hardly appeared dented. “What’s that thing made of? Titanium?”

  “Pressure container,” said Falconi. “Biocontainment. Damn thing is built to survive reentry.”

  Sparrow and Hwa-jung let off a burst of shots toward the Jelly. Kira stayed where she was. What else could she do? The Jelly was at least fifteen meters away. Too far for—

  A fresh set of screams sounded from among the refugees. Kira looked back to see a tiny body squirming in the air, a child no more than six or seven years old. The girl had somehow lost her handhold and floated away from the deck.

  A man scrambled free of the mass of refugees and threw himself after the child. “Stay down!” Falconi shouted, but too late. The man caught the girl, and the impact sent them into an uncontrolled tumble down the middle of the hold.

  Surprise made Kira slow to react. Sparrow beat her to it; the armored woman abandoned the rib she was behind and flew at full thruster speed toward the two refugees.

  Falconi cursed and lunged in a failed attempt to stop Sparrow from leaving cover.

  A fan of inky smoke sprayed around the Jelly, hiding it. With her enhanced vision, Kira
could still see a tangled outline of the Jelly’s tentacles as it crawled toward a service ladder attached to the wall.

  She fired into the smoke, as did Hwa-jung.

  The Jelly flinched even as it wrapped a tentacle around one of the ladder’s side struts and, seemingly without effort, tore it free.

  Fast as a striking snake, it threw the strut at Sparrow.

  The jagged piece of metal struck Sparrow in the abdomen, between two segments of her power armor. Half of the strut emerged from her back.

  Hwa-jung screamed, a horrible, high-pitched sound that seemed impossible coming from someone her size.

  5.

  A rush of blinding anger washed away Kira’s fear. Swinging herself around the edge of the rib, she launched herself after the Jelly.

  Behind her, Falconi shouted something.

  As she hurtled toward the Jelly, the alien spread its tentacles, as if to welcome her into its embrace. From it emanated nearscent of contempt, and for the first time, she responded in kind:

  [[Kira here: Die, grasper!]]

  An instant of astonishment that the Soft Blade let her not only comprehend but communicate in the alien language. Then she did what seemed only right: she stabbed with her arm, and she stabbed with her heart and her mind, and she channeled all of her fear, pain, and anger into the act.

  In that moment, Kira felt something break in her mind, like a glass rod snapping in two, followed by fractures and fragments fitting into place throughout her consciousness—puzzle pieces sliding into their appointed slots, and accompanying the joining, a sense of profound completeness.

  To her astonished relief, the xeno fused solid around her fingers and a thin, flat blade shot from her hand and pierced the alien’s carapace. The creature thrashed from side to side, its tentacles knotting and squirming in a helpless frenzy.

  Then, of their own accord, a pincushion of black spines sprouted from the end of the blade and impaled every part of the Jelly.

  Her momentum carried the alien back against the far wall. There they stuck, the nanoneedles from the suit pinning the Jelly to the hull.

  The alien shuddered and ceased thrashing, although the tentacles continued to turn and twist in a lazy rhythm, pennants rippling in the breeze. And the nearscent of death filled the hold.

  CHAPTER VII

  ICONS & INDICATIONS

  1.

  Kira waited a moment more before allowing the blade and spines to retract. The Jelly deflated like a balloon, ichor oozing from the countless wounds across its body.

  The cloud of smoke was already dispersing, streaming into space. Kira kicked herself away from the Jelly, and the raging wind pushed the corpse into the breach. The alien lodged there on top of the loose wall panel, blocking most of the hole. The scream of wind lessened to a high whistle.

  Kira turned to see the refugees staring at her with shock and fear. With some regret, she realized there was no hiding the Soft Blade now. The secret was out, for good or for ill.

  Ignoring the refugees, she pulled herself over to where Trig, Falconi, and Hwa-jung were gathered around Sparrow’s limp form.

  The machine boss had her forehead pressed against Sparrow’s faceplate, and she was speaking in a low tone, the words an indistinct murmur. Smoke drifted from the back of Sparrow’s armor, and an exposed wire was sparking. A ring of white medifoam had welled out around the strut that impaled her. The foam would have stopped the bleeding, but Kira wasn’t sure if that would be enough to save her.

  “Doc, get down here. On the double!” said Falconi.

  Kira swallowed, her mouth dry. “What can I do?” Up close, Hwa-jung’s murmurs were no more distinct than before. Globules of tears clung to the machine boss’s red-rimmed eyes, and her cheeks were pale, save for a bright, feverish spot on each side.

  “Hold her feet,” said Falconi. “Keep her from moving.” He looked over at the refugees—who were starting to emerge from cover—and shouted, “Get out of here before we run out of air! Get into the other hold. Scram!”

  They complied, giving a wide berth to not only Sparrow but Kira.

  “Gregorovich, how long until air pressure drops below fifty percent?” Kira asked.

  The ship mind answered with sharp efficiency, “At current rates, twelve minutes. If the Jelly is dislodged, no more than forty seconds.”

  The sides of Sparrow’s boots were cool against her hands as Kira gripped them. For a moment she wondered how it was possible to feel that when even the cold of space hadn’t fazed her.

  Then she realized her mind was wandering. Now that the fighting was over, the adrenaline was starting to drain out of her system. Another few minutes and she was going to crash.

  Vishal came flying through the door to the cargo hold, carrying with him a satchel with a silver cross sewn on the front.

  “Move,” he said as he collided with the crate next to Kira.

  She obliged, and he rotated himself over Sparrow and stared through her faceplate, same as Hwa-jung. Then he pushed himself down to where the strut jutted out of her abdomen. The wrinkles on his face deepened.

  “Can you—” Trig started to say.

  “Quiet,” Vishal snapped.

  He studied the rod for another few seconds and then moved around to Sparrow’s back and examined the other end. “You,” he pointed at Trig, “cut here and here.” With his middle finger, he drew a line across the rod, a hand’s breadth above Sparrow’s stomach, and the same above her back. “Use a beam, not a pulse.”

  Trig positioned himself next to Sparrow so the laser wouldn’t hit anyone else. Through his visor, Kira could see his face was coated with sweat and his eyes were glassy. He lifted one arm and aimed the emitter on his gauntlet at the rod. “Eyes and ears,” he said.

  The strut flared white hot, and the composite tubing vaporized with a popping sound. An acrid, plastic smell filled the air.

  The strut parted, and Falconi grabbed the loose section and gave it a gentle push toward the far end of the hold.

  Then Trig repeated the operation on the other side of the strut. Hwa-jung snared that piece and threw it away with a vicious gesture; it bounced against a wall.

  “Good,” said Vishal. “I locked her armor; she is safe to move. Just do not bang her into anything.”

  “Sickbay?” Falconi asked.

  “Posthaste.”

  “I’ll do it,” said Hwa-jung. Her voice was as hard and rough as broken stone. Without waiting for them to agree, she grabbed a handle on Sparrow’s armor and pulled the rigid shell of metal toward the open pressure door.

  2.

  Trig and Vishal accompanied Hwa-jung as she guided Sparrow out of the hold. Falconi stayed behind, and Kira with him.

  “Hurry up,” he shouted, gesturing at the remaining refugees.

  They pulled themselves past in a confused bunch. Kira was relieved to see that the girl and man Sparrow had been attempting to protect were unharmed.

  When the last refugees had left, she followed Falconi into the corridor outside. He closed and locked the pressure door behind them, isolating the damaged hold.

  Kira allowed the mask to retract from her face, glad to be rid of it. Color diffused through her vision, returning a sense of reality to her surroundings.

  A hand on her wrist surprised her. Falconi held her, his gaze disconcertingly intense. “What the hell were those spikes back there? You didn’t say anything about them before.”

  Kira yanked her hand free. Now wasn’t the time to explain, not about the suit and certainly not about how her teammates had died. “I didn’t want to scare you,” she said.

  His face darkened. “Anything else you didn’t—”

  Just then, four refugees—all men—walked over, using the gecko pads on their boots. None of them looked happy. “Hey, Falconi,” said the leader. He was a tough, thickset man with a short circle beard. Kira vaguely remembered seeing him in the cargo hold before.

  “What?” said Falconi, brusque.

  “I don’t
know what you think you’re doing, but we didn’t agree to go chasing after Jellies. You’re already screwing us over with how much you’re charging us; now you’re dragging us into battle? And I don’t know what she’s got going on, but normal it’s not.” He pointed at Kira. “Seriously, what’s wrong with you? There are women and children here. If you don’t get us to Ruslan—”

  “You’ll do what?” Falconi said sharply. He eyed them, his hands still on the grip of his grenade launcher. The weapon was empty, but Kira didn’t feel the need to mention that. “Try to fly out of here with a pissed-off ship mind?”

  “I wouldn’t recommend it,” said Gregorovich from above, and he tittered.

  The man shrugged and cracked his knuckles. “Yeah, yeah. You know what, wiseguy? I’d rather take a chance with your crazy-ass ship mind than chance getting shish-kebabbed by the Jellies, like your crewmember did. And I’m not the only one that feels so.” He wagged a finger at Falconi and then he and the other men returned to the other cargo hold.

  “Well that went well,” said Kira.

  Falconi grunted, and she followed him as he hurried back to the center of the ship and kicked his way up the main shaft. He said, “Are there any other Jellies on their ship?”

  “I don’t think so, but I’m pretty sure Trig and I found their birthing chamber.”

  The captain snared the handhold next to the doorway to deck C, where the sickbay was. He paused and held up a finger. “Trig, you copy?… Navárez says you found birthing pods?… You got it. Burn them out. And fast, too, or we’re going to be in a shit-ton of trouble.”

  “You’re sending him back out there?” Kira said as Falconi headed through the doorway and down the adjacent corridor.

  The captain nodded. “Someone’s got to do it, and he’s the only one with functioning armor.”

  The thought bothered Kira. The kid had a broken wrist; if he were attacked again …

  Before she could voice her concern, they arrived at sickbay. Nielsen floated outside, an arm around Hwa-jung’s shoulders, comforting the machine boss.