Miko’s guts crawled in horror. It would open the bay like a can-opener. “They’ll breach the hull and kill us!”
“That’s Jakru made.” Fenli croaked feebly. His eyes squinted at the form growing on the screen. “I’m betting these invaders won’t jeopardize our hull, or the Jakru’s life.”
“Why not? They’ve done everything else. Doesn’t this ship have shields?” Miko bellowed in dismay.
The locust chittered as if in answer.
Fenli croaked. “There’s your answer. The ship’s damaged. We’re lucky it’s still navigable.”
Miko clenched his teeth. “Then prepare to fight whatever it is that comes down to get her.”
The ceiling directly above them split in a wide O and pieces fell crashing on the floor. Miko leaped back, raising a lumo javelin. A long proboscis snaked through the gap—a hideous, metallic thing dripping with oil. On its end was perched an ugly eye, a mechanized sensor. It rotated alarmingly and seemed to look in all directions at once.
Miko sucked in a breath. Through the vacuum-sealed opening, the creature of organics and metal slithered, with its tail still anchored somewhere back in the alien vessel. Sussing out the situation, the probe undulated toward the Jakru tank.
Fenli gave a miserable cry. When the robot probe caught sight of the figure in the tank, it jerked upright and a mini member sprouted from the snake-like outerbody.
“Quick, pull her away from the thing!” Fenli yelled.
Miko roared, “Why don’t you let it take her?”
“And have it kill us after it takes her away? Think it through! We’re expendable. Fight!”
Miko blasted the snake-like body with the lumo. The rays careened off its gleaming surface like quicksilver, rebounding off the equipment wall of the ship. But the blast had the flexible thing streaming smoke and it quivered back, eye rotating in a menacing circle. Miko tossed Fenli the pipe. The injured man staggered up to savage it.
The snake whipped up and snapped a coil, sending the cargo man flying.
Another silver member sprouted from the main mass and it lashed out, coiling around Miko’s waist, lifting him high and choking the breath out of him. Miko gasped in anguish, firing at the loop encircling his torso. Rays careened around the hull in dangerous rainbows. He suffered the thing’s constricting embrace.
Usk advanced to clamp pincers on the probe. The thing sprouted another member and caught him by the leg. It dragged him hard across the floor. Usk chittered and extended his claws toward anything for support. Then the bot spun its victim up like a lariat and flung it wide, lifting Usk up at the last minute before the insidious eye. The outcast’s chittering cry rang out, knowing it had only seconds to live. Shrieks, electric snaps, and lasers flew out around the cabin. A thicker member sprouted to curl around the tank with the woman. Hoisting her up through the opening, it employed cutters on the end of the tentacles poised above to enlarge the hole to pull the bulk through.
Miko cried out in fury. He smashed his fists against the metal tube, feeling his vision swim. Now everything was going black. He caught a glimpse of a metallic loop questing for his skull.
Bzt.
He flashed out of existence. Crackles, blurs and sparks. They were his universe now and he was nowhere and everywhere at the same time. Gleaming coils constricted around thin air. The old Miko was somewhere in limbo. The eye swivelled about looking for him and its metallic body momentarily went slack, unable to sense its prey. With sinister purpose, Miko glided forth in his astral body. He willed himself to acquire the lumo stick. The pulsing weapon floated up toward him to his amazement. How is it that he could pick up objects even though he was insubstantial, and blaster fire and bodies and metal went right through him? Certain mystics had talked of chi, a power that enveloped the body, a force capable of producing miraculous feats. Perhaps his will allowed his chi to retrieve it?
Miko moved through the air like a true ghost, weapon hoisted, as if it had a life its own.
Fenli gaped, blinked. “What the—?”
Miko snatched up the pipe and smashed it at the roving eye, which was swivelling in the other direction.
A whistling whine and grey plasma spewed from the rents in its serpent-like body. The tentacles whipped about in frenzied confusion.
The tank smashed to the ground. The woman was knocked senseless upon the impact.
Splashes of pale green liquid leaked around the tank’s edges. The glass sported a hairline crack.
Moments passed and Miko could feel himself coming back. Bzt—walls of pain came crashing against his skull.
He collapsed, lying in a sprawled, ravaged heap. The woman was coming to. He saw the look of incredulity in her eyes as he blinked back into existence. Miko thrust himself away from the mysterious woman, as if she were a curse. He rolled aside as the inert mass of the probe slid down and lay in a smoking heap. Scrambling to his feet, Miko felt vertigo threatening to capsize him again. His breath rasped in his chest; the blood in his temples throbbed.
Fenli crouched, staring at Miko in stunned disbelief. “You’re dead! I saw you vaporized by the probe. How did you get—” he gulped. “How did you come back to life?”
Miko lay tense, his senses deadened. He debated telling Fenli the truth about his accident, but a part of him stayed his tongue. Could he really trust the cargo man not to betray him? The man had proven himself impetuous by pushing to keep the Jakru woman. Better to keep his mutant power a secret. Words came to Miko’s lips. “The probe confined me in some limbo. When the thing’s power shut off, the prison lattice could not hold me, so I believe.
