I could not safely contact Rin by phone, and even if Punjibar had not been spiritually opposed to mind-speak, they were out of range. So Tursa called. While the huntress appraised Rin of the situation, I paced. Considering our options. Waiting for orders. But I could hear the entire conversation, of course, and Rin was at a loss. On the other end of the line, her voice broke and hitched. She was crying, and I was not there to comfort her. 

Unacceptable. 

I gave Tursa what I hoped was a significant look, and she ended the call with promises of contacting Rin again shortly. 

“What is it?” she queried at once, whiskers twitching. 

“We have only one option,” I informed her. “If we wait here, an Integrated rescue team will come for us, and even with Grayman in tow, it will not be long before the Benefactors become privy to my continued existence.” 

Tursa attempted a human expression, rocking the squalling baby in her arms as she rose a fur-spot which almost passed for an eyebrow. Some part of me, some human instinct, railed at the edges of my awareness—demanding that I snatch the baby away from the beast at once, lest she eat it. Him. 

“And so?” 

“And so, we must make use of the escape pods. We passed a closed emergency panel. There’s still at least one of them left.” 

The predator scowled. Shosho chirped uneasily, settling in against my neck. 

“One pod couldn’t fit us all. Besides, they’re mostly automated, and they put out beacons. The rescue teams will still come for us.” 

“It doesn’t need to fit us all,” I said. “Autopilot can be overridden, beacons can be disabled, and Grayman will only need to obscure us for a little while longer."

I lifted him a bit in my tentacles. He lolled in my grip, seeming to dip in and out of unconsciousness. Overcome by the chaotic clashing of grief, rage, exhaustion and calming pheromones. Tursa raised her brow-spot still further. 

“Trust me,” I said. 

Tursa, Allico, V, Shosho and the baby were packed into the one remaining escape pod we were able to find. It was a tight fit, but a fit nonetheless. With the entry hatch closed and sealed, I pressed myself over it, excreting a hypersilk-derived adhesive agent through my t̸̟̀̊r̸̬̙͐̑y̶͍̹͌͘p̴̼̪͊͝t̸̡̾͝ḧ̴̢́͜ỳ̸͎r̸͕̿a̷̺̾x̷̛̹̮̏ to secure my place. 

{I’m ready,} I informed Tursa. 

{Acknowledged.} The seals connecting the emergency evacuation shaft to the air-locked chamber containing the escape pod snapped shut, one after the other. {Evacuation in three, two…}

I expelled most of my body’s water and my antioxidant shielding flared into action as, automatically, my system generated and replaced key cellular components with trehalose.

{One.}

The airlock opened, and we were sucked into space. 

With my desiccated physical form rapidly entering a state of near-cryptobiosis, my awareness was propelled into the deepest of OtherStates. Into the presence and essence of my foremost Mother. 

It is impossible to describe through linguistics the manner in which a Mother communicates. It encompasses every sense known to humanity, and many more, and goes beyond senses entirely. But this time, it was difficult even to comprehend. Muddled scents and contrasting sensations, garbled visions of several possible futures. And threaded through everything, clearer than all else, one new directive and one warning.  

Yet it was difficult to focus on trivial things like directives and warnings with futures such as those laid out before me—murky though they were. They included Rin and I, together, and, eventually…a child. But I saw also very different and equally possible futures. Futures in which Rin died, or in which the child was born and almost immediately killed. And all of these objectionable outcomes, all of them, were somehow inextricably linked to the most terrible eventuality of all. The one possibility that all Lyrians worked always to combat, to prevent. 

For reasons I could not understand, everything hinged on the eventual existence of the child. An eventuality that must be defended at all costs, a task which—unfathomably—only I among Lyrians could carry out. And so, my directive: Protect Rin. It was something I already had every intention of doing. All else, it seemed, would fall into place naturally. 

I queried the Mothers—what of the Benefactors and their transgressions? But I received in response only further urging to safeguard the captain. Somehow, these things were all entangled. And though I’d gone to them intending and prepared to, I did not have to beg the Mothers for that which I needed of them. The boon was necessary in order to carry out their directive. But if I wasn’t careful, it might be the last I ever received…or so the Mothers’ warning seemed to suggest. 

It did not come in the form of words, but the essence of it was this: do not incorporate any further genetic material from Warped individuals. Already, you are fading from our view and reach. 

The truth of this was evident in the interaction itself. I could sense that the Mothers were attempting to convey a great deal more information than I was receiving. I could feel it teasing at the edges of my awareness. But I simply could not understand it. 

The change I had asked them for, their boon, their gift…that at least came through. In a cold explosion of power from deep within my being, the latent ability was unlocked. An ability normally earned only by those nearing their fourth stage of life. An ability which I was, undoubtedly, undeserving of and unready for. 

But none of that mattered. 

It was mine, now. 

I was only distantly aware as the new layer of cells began to generate around me and—eventually—the escape pod, each one of them a fully independent entity in and of itself. As the nanophage replicated and spread, I imbued them with abilities gained through my genetic acquisitions. I became so absorbed in the process that I nearly lost my sense of the passage of time, even my own sense of self—dissolving entirely into the task. By the time I emerged from this state, nearly an hour had gone by. I hoped Grayman had managed to hold out. He could rest now. 

The pod was almost entirely gone. I had absorbed and reconstituted it in the building of my new, secondary form…along with a great deal of debris from the explosions. There had not been enough of the necessary elements present to both fully rehydrate myself and maintain life-support, and so my primary body remained largely desiccated at the heart of the new vessel I had at once created and become. Its form was still rudimentary, but it was enough for now. Enough to support the lives of the crew. And, thanks to Grayman’s contributions, enough to escape the prying gaze of Benefactor allies.

If I could only overcome my disorientation first. 

I was all at once keenly aware of my original body, the interior of my new ship form, its occupants, and the fathomless vacuum of space that whirled all around me. There was so much to process that even with my seven brains it took time to register that something was terribly wrong. The shuttlecraft containing Rin, Lore, and Punjibar was not hovering within view and awaiting incorporation, as planned. A quick scan of the World Sphere told me that it was, in fact, nowhere nearby. Nowhere I could immediately locate, at least. 

Rage coursed through me, coursed through my strange, unfamiliar new body. Distantly I sensed my occupants’ dismay as my insides quaked and my speaker-slats roared wordlessly. 

{What happened?} I demanded of them. {Where is the shuttle? Where is Rin?}

For too long, entire seconds, no one answered. 

{“WHAT HAPPENED?”}

My words blasted from the speakers and into the mind-link at once. 

{An Integrated rescue ship got them before they could get to us,} answered Tursa at last. {They tried to refuse it, but—}

{“WHERE DID IT GO?”} 

{We don’t know. We were in an escape pod being absorbed into a newly-forming bioship. We had no way of tracking them, and they’ve stopped answering their phones and comm-links.}

I…I think I may have blacked out for a moment. All I know is that in one instant, I was perceiving Tursa’s words. In the next, all of my brains were scanning the World Sphere, the whole of it this time. Furiously, frantically. 

And in the next instant I found her. Them. Plunging through the atmosphere of Elysian. The vessel was ten times my size, packed with drones and clearly bound for the planet’s most infamous settlement…a place referred to by most who’d been there as “Nightmare City.” Melinoe. 

I dove after them.

KittraMcBriar

The main man himself (or at least, the part of him that isn’t a spaceship)