To Sleep in a Sea of Stars

by Christopher Paolini

  The thought was more terrifying than death itself. If she were just killed, she would still be who and what she was until the end. But if the Seed consumed her, she would be facing the destruction of her self long before her mind or body ceased existing.

  Then the heavy hands of Falconi’s exo were on her, and he was lifting her back onto her feet, speaking to her in soothing tones: *Hey, it’s okay. We haven’t lost yet.*

  She shook her head, feeling tears forming underneath the xeno’s mask. “No, I can’t. I can’t. I—”

  He shook her hard enough to get her attention. The Soft Blade reacted with a mild ripple of spikes. *Don’t fucking say that. If you give up, we might as well already be dead.*

  “You don’t understand.” She made a helpless gesture toward the misbegotten shape hovering in her overlays, even though Falconi couldn’t see it. “That, that—”

  *Stop it.* His voice was stern. Stern enough that Kira listened. *Focus on one thing at a time. We need to kill Ctein. Can you do that?*

  She nodded, feeling a measure of control returning to her. “Yeah.… I think so.”

  *Okay. Then get it together and let’s put down this Jelly. We can worry about the nightmares afterward.*

  Kira’s gut still twisted with fear, though she tried to ignore it, tried to act as if she were confident. She banished the feed from her overlays, but in the back of her mind, the image of the Maw remained, as if burned into her retinas.

  At Kira’s internal command, the xeno propelled her to the front of the airlock. “Let’s do this,” she said.

  2.

  Outside the Wallfish, in the alien storage room, shadows spun as the Battered Hierophant spun, and yet because of the alien ship’s gravity field, Kira felt none of the rotation. The shifting light had the brutal, hard-edged starkness peculiar to space, and its movement produced a strobe-like effect that was disorienting.

  “Stay close,” she said.

  *We’re right behind you,* said Falconi.

  Unwilling to waste even a single second, Kira started across the strobing storage room. The cycling shadows made her dizzy, so she focused on the decking between her feet and tried not to think about how they were spinning through space.

  As she moved among the rows of translucent globules—each of which was at least four meters in diameter and filled with strange, frozen shapes—a fist-sized explosion took out a chunk of the one by her head.

  There was no sound, but Kira felt a spray of shrapnel ping the hardened surface of the xeno.

  *Cover!* Falconi shouted.

  Kira made no attempt to hide. Instead, she reached out with the xeno and ripped up the pearl-white decking, tore at the nearby globules and the stem that connected them, and compacted all the material into a shield that protected not only her but also the crew behind her. Same as she’d done on Orsted. Only now she felt confident, self-assured. Compared with before, commanding the Seed was effortless, and she had little fear of losing control. As she willed, so it was.

  She switched her vision to infrared and saw a white-hot beam stab out from among the racks of storage units and burn a glowing, pinkie-sized hole into the material directly over her chest. The sight alarmed her until she realized the hole was far too shallow to reach her body.

  Ahead of her, two Jellies—a pair of squids—lurked among the globules. They were hurrying away from her on coiled tentacles, a pair of enormous blasters gripped in their pincers and aimed her way.

  Oh no you don’t, Kira thought, and sent tendrils racing out from the Soft Blade.

  With them, she caught the Jellies, squeezed them, cut them, tore them into a mess of twitching flesh and spurting ichor. Maybe this was going to be easier than they’d thought.…

  Over the radio, Kira heard someone gag.

  “With me!” she shouted, and headed toward the white shell that would grant them access to the pressurized interior of the Battered Hierophant.

  The shell refused to open as she neared, but with three quick slices of the Soft Blade, Kira severed the mechanism that kept the three-part door closed.

  A hurricane of wind buffeted her as the wedges of the shell sagged apart.

  The shield she’d constructed was too large to fit inside, so with some reluctance, she discarded it before allowing the xeno to propel her into the depths of the alien ship. Itari and the crew followed close behind.

  3.

  The interior of the Hierophant was unlike the two other Jelly ships Kira had been on. The walls were darker, more somber—colored with an assortment of greys and blues, and decorated with strips of coral-like patterns that in any other circumstance Kira would have loved to study.

  She was standing inside a long, empty corridor marked with side passages, additional doorways, and alcoved tunnels leading both up and down. Now that they were again surrounded by air, Kira could hear a piercing whistle from the ruined door behind them, as well as the buzz of Hwa-jung’s drones and a howling klaxon that reminded her of whale sounds, as if the entire ship were bleating with pain, anger, and fear.

  The rushing air stank with nearscent of alarm, and with it, a command that all service co-forms were to swim shadow-wise without delay. Whatever that meant.

  For the briefest of moments, Kira thought that perhaps they had slipped past the Hierophant’s sensors, and perhaps they wouldn’t have to fight every step of the way.

  Then, with an audible snikt, a white membrane slid across the door she’d cut open, stopping the flow of air, and—at the opposite end of the corridor—a mass of swarming limbs appeared: scores of Jellies, angry, armed, and heading straight for her and the others.

  Kira’s heart rate doubled. This was the exact scenario she’d hoped to avoid. But she had the Soft Blade, and it was her arm, her sword, and her shield. The Jellies would be hard-pressed to stop her. Grabbing all sides of the corridor with a starburst of tendrils, she yanked the walls inward, forming a thick plug out of the bulkheads.

  As lasers and slug throwers and dull explosions sounded on the other side of the barrier, Sparrow said, *That’s a hell of a welcoming party!*

  *Itari!* said Falconi. *Where’s the nearest node?*

  Kira translated, and the Jelly crawled up beside her. It tapped the inner part of her makeshift shield. [[Itari here: Forward.]]

  “Forward!” she shouted, and started to push her way farther into the corridor, keeping the shield suspended in front of her, using it as a plug to fill the rounded passage. She could feel the impacts against the outside of the shield, both from transferred momentum and from sharp twinges of not-pain that shot through her tendrils. Just enough feedback for the Soft Blade to let her know where the danger was, but not enough to actually hurt.

  Kira passed the first door and was almost to the second when a shout sounded, and she turned to see a Jelly hurtling out of the now-open door behind them, tentacles spread wide like a cuttlefish about to engulf its prey. Accompanying the Jelly was a pair of white, orb-shaped drones with glinting lenses.…

  The alien slammed into Sparrow’s power armor, knocking her into the wall. Then several things happened at once, nearly too fast to follow: Itari slung several of its own tentacles around the attacking Jelly and attempted to pull it off Sparrow. The three of them stumbled into the near wall. A burst of laser fire from Sparrow’s exo stitched a line of holes across the enemy’s carapace, and Falconi moved forward to help, only for the alien to knock him to the deck with a single blow.

  Nielsen jumped forward to shield the captain. The Jelly caught her on the backswing, and hit her square in the chest. She crumpled to the deck.

  Hwa-jung’s drones fired their welding lasers, and the two white orbs fell from the air amid a jet of sparks. Then the machine boss herself was standing in front of Nielsen and Falconi, and the thickly built woman grabbed the tentacle that threatened them, hugged it to her chest, and squeezed.

  Bones snapped inside the wriggling, sucker-covered arm.

  Vishal was shooting his slug thrower: a rapid bam!
bam! bam! that Kira felt in her bones. She hesitated, paralyzed. If she used the Soft Blade to attack the Jelly, there was a good chance she’d hurt or kill Itari at the same time.

  Her concern was unwarranted. Itari yanked the other Jelly and threw it back down the corridor, past the Entropists and away from Sparrow.

  That was all the opening Kira needed. She sent forth a cluster of black needles that pierced the Jelly and held it in place, unable to escape. The creature flopped and twisted and shuddered and then grew still. A pool of orange ichor oozed out from under its carapace.

  *Ms. Audrey!* said Vishal, and hurried to the first officer’s side.

  4.

  *Close off that doorway before any more get through!* said Falconi, scrambling back to his feet. His heavy exo clanked against the deck, leaving dull, lead-colored smears on the white material.

  Kira used the Soft Blade to tear and bend chunks of the wall until the portal was impassable. It had been stupid of her not to block off the entrance as they’d gone by.

  As a final precaution, she ripped up a large piece of the curved deck to serve as a blast shield in the corridor behind them. Then she turned her attention back to the group.

  Vishal was hunched next to Nielsen, running a chip-lab over her while keeping a hand pressed against her side. *How bad is it, Doc?* Falconi asked.

  *Two broken ribs, I am afraid,* Vishal said.

  *Dammit,* said Falconi, keeping his launcher trained on the hallway. *You shouldn’t have done that, Audrey. I’m the one in armor.*

  Nielsen coughed. Flecks of blood spattered the inside of her faceplate. *Sorry, Salvo. Next time I’ll let the Jelly smash you to pulp.*

  *You do that,* he said savagely.

  *We gotta keep moving,* said Sparrow, joining them. Her exo was scratched and dented, but the damage appeared superficial. Ahead of them, the dull thunder of weapons fire continued to reverberate as the Jellies worked to shoot their way through the plug Kira had constructed in the corridor.

  Nielsen tried to stand. She winced and dropped down with a cry Kira heard even through the first officer’s helmet.

  *Shit,* said Falconi. *We’ll have to carry her. Sparrow—*

  The blond-haired woman shook her head. *She’ll just get in the way. Send her back. We’re still close enough. It’s a straight shot from here to the Wallfish.*

  The Entropists moved in closer. *We can escort her to the ship, if you want, Captain, and then—*

  *—hurry back.*

  *Fuck,* said Falconi, scowling. *Fine. Do it. Gregorovich will show you where the armory is. Grab some mining charges while you’re at it. We’ll use them to block off these side passages.*

  Veera and Jorrus dipped their heads. *As you say—*

  *—it shall be done.*

  Kira was impressed that the Entropists were working together so well even with their hive mind broken. They almost seemed as if they were still sharing thoughts.

  Despite Nielsen’s grimace of pain, Jorrus and Veera picked her up, stepped around the blast shield Kira had erected, and trotted back along the corridor.

  *Go,* said Falconi, turning back to Kira. *Let’s find one of these nodes before the Jellies pick off the rest of us.*

  Kira nodded and started to push forward again, making sure to wall off each of the shell doors she encountered.

  The attack had shaken her confidence. For all its power, the Soft Blade didn’t make her omnipotent. Far from it. A single Jelly had gotten past their defenses, and now they were down three people. Just as she’d feared. And there was no guarantee the Entropists would be able to rejoin them. What would happen if someone else got hurt? Returning to the Wallfish wouldn’t be an option much longer, not unless she was there to protect them.

  Of all of them, she was the only one who could do anything substantial to keep the Jellies at bay. And if she could, then she should. The only real limit on what she could do with the Soft Blade was her imagination, so why was she holding back?

  At the thought, Kira began to extend the Soft Blade backwards, forming a latticed cage around their group that would, hopefully, ward off any more attacks. She also added to the shield in front of her, incorporating pieces of the wall and deck, reinforcing the material of the Soft Blade to make what she hoped was an impenetrable barrier.

  She couldn’t see through the shield, of course, not with her eyes, but she could sense what lay ahead via the tendrils of the xeno: the shape of the corridor, the swirls of air—often superheated from lasers—and the ongoing impacts of the Jellies’ hostile fire.

  They hurried past door after door, and every time Kira asked if they were still heading in the right direction, Itari said, [[Forward.]]

  The size of the Hierophant continued to astound Kira. She felt as if she were inside a space station or an underground base rather than a ship. There was a solidness to the Hierophant, a sense of mass that she had never experienced on a mobile vessel, not even the Extenuating Circumstances.

  Over their shared line, she heard Falconi say, *Pretty good shooting back there, Doc.*

  *Thank you, yes.*

  A thud on the other side of a shell door that she’d just barricaded made Kira and the others flinch. The pieces of the shell twitched as they struggled to open, and the door bulged outward as something pushed from the other side. But the strips of bulkhead Kira had secured over the shell held, and whatever was trying to enter the corridor failed.

  She drove forward until she felt a wall blocking her way and the passage split into two different directions. Kira allowed the Soft Blade to divide and spread outward until it sealed off both passages. The barrage of incoming fire—physical and energy attacks both—continued, although the majority of it came from the left-hand branch.

  As the Soft Blade flowed into place, it exposed the surface of the bulkhead that had stopped their forward drive.

  A panel set within the wall glittered as if with a field of stars: pinpoints of shifting light of all different colors.

  [[Itari here: The Reticulum!]] The Jelly crawled forward, nearscent of relief and determination emanating from its limbs. [[Itari here: Keep watch for me, Idealis.]] Then the Jelly pressed a tentacle against the illuminated panel. To Kira’s astonishment, the tentacle melded with the wall, sinking inward until it was nearly hidden.

  *Is that it?* Falconi asked, settling next to her.

  “Yes.” But Kira’s attention was elsewhere; the impacts hammering against the xeno’s barriers were growing stronger. She hurried to reinforce them by ripping additional material from the walls, but she could tell she wouldn’t be able to hold off the Jellies much longer.

  A sharp pang of not-pain shot through the tendrils extended into the left-hand passage; the xeno’s way of letting her know it had been damaged. She gasped, and Vishal said, *What is it, Ms. Kira?*

  “I…” Another pang, stronger than before. Kira winced, her eyes watering, and shook her head. A spike of blue-hot flame was cutting through the outer layers of her shield—a blazing, sunlike heat that melted and withered her second flesh. The Soft Blade could protect her from many things, but even it would fail beneath the bite of a thermal lance. The Jellies had remembered their old lessons on how to fight the Idealis.

  “They’re giving me some … difficulty.” [[Kira here: Hurry if you can, Itari.]]

  A wave of colors raced across the Jelly’s skin. Then Itari pulled its tentacle away from the wall. Strands of mucus dripped from the suckers on the alien’s arm. [[Itari here: Ctein is four nsarro ahead of us, and fourteen decks down.]]

  [[Kira here: How far is a nsarro?]]

  [[Itari here: The distance one can swim in seven pulses.]]

  From the Seed’s memories, Kira had a feeling that a pulse wasn’t very long, although she couldn’t put an exact time to it.

  An explosion shook the deck underneath them. *Kira,* said Falconi, sounding nervous. Hwa-jung’s drones hovered over his shoulders, bright searchlights glowing beneath their manipulators.

  “Ever
yone hold on!” said Kira. “We’re going down. Fourteen decks.”

  She sent black rods shooting back and forth across the latticework cage she’d created, placing them between the people she was protecting. Once Falconi and the others had a secure grip on the beams, Kira dug into the deck with the xeno, letting her thousands of tiny, finger-like fibers rip through the flooring, rip through the pipes and circuitry and strange, pulsing organs that separated one level of the ship from another.

  It was a risky thing to do; if she hit a pressurized line, the explosion could kill them all. The Soft Blade knew the danger, though, and she felt confident it would avoid any lethal pieces of equipment.

  Within seconds, she’d torn open a hole big enough to encompass their group. Beneath them, blue shadows shifted amid a shimmer of rising motes, bright as embers.

  Then Kira released the Seed’s hold upon the walls and the shield, and dropped herself and her charges into the blue dusk.

  5.

  A whirl of motes blinded Kira for a moment.

  They cleared, and she saw a long, low room, scalloped with shallow beds awash with water. The walls were nearly black, and the floor too. Oval orbs the size of a person’s head glowed with soft radiance above altar-like niches set in regular intervals along the bulkheads.

  Within the sloshing water, dark shapes skittered, small and insectile. They fled before the harsh searchlights Hwa-jung’s drones cast over them, seeking safety in shadows.

  Hatching pools, was Kira’s first thought, but she couldn’t imagine why the Jellies would bother with such a thing on a spaceship of all places. They had other technology for reproduction. The Nest of Transference, for one.

  Clear slabs several centimeters thick slammed shut over the pools, sealing them off, and without so much as a whiff of warning from the Hierophant’s nearscent, all sense of weight vanished.