Cira wakes up to pain so profound, she nearly vomits. Something crawls inside her. Searing hot. Branching. It perforates her intestines, her lungs, even her brain. The smells of burnt flesh and hair cloys her suit. It's cooking her from the inside out.

Her lungs fully expand for the first time. She screams. The branching accelerates. Thin scalding filaments fork through her body until every capillary and nerve ending is alight. Muscles flex involuntarily, cramp and spasm. Icy sweat pours down her face, stings her eyes, and fogs up her helmet. Tears blind her. It's not one type of pain. It's all of them. Burning, aching, stabbing, throbbing, bursts, and waves.

Above her is nothing but blue-tinged light. It dims and brightens again. Smearing through the fog on her visor. It finally drills into her bones. Her left iliac crest. Her right. Her pelvis ignites, followed by both femurs and lumbar vertebrae. Spreading up and down. She vomits. Swallows. Starts choking. The acrid smell stings her nose and mouth. Thoughts swarm around her skull, but one breaks free: pulmonary aspiration.

She tries to move. Nothing happens. She tries again. Something hooks under her skin and wrenches her whole body until she lays on her left side. Cira coughs until her innards clench together. Finally, air. She gulps deep breaths and watches condensation ebb and flow along her visor.

Everything dims. It feels like she's falling through the floor. Her arm abruptly contracts. The muscles in her face twist. Even her eyes roll up and to the right. Pushing against bone; ready to capsize in their sockets like ancient Terran boats. Her whole body suddenly twists and jerks. Even her vocal chords. She grunts while her throat opens and closes like a fist. Spittle wets her chin.

Seizure. The word slithers around her mind until it connects with a concept. She's having a seizure.

The violence eases as if naming her condition is enough to ward it away. An alarm beeps in her ear. It pauses and a rising electronic whine fills her helmet. Her scalp tingles. It's not quite painful. Nothing compared to before. Cira gasps for breath and finally blinks of her own volition.

It takes time for her head to clear. The pain and heat are echoes of their former intensity. She slowly opens her eyes. Vomit stings her nostrils. Her skull feels ready to split open. It's only made worse by the station klaxon. Data flashes across the bottom of her visor. It's legible now. The atmosphere is stable. She disengages the lock on her helmet and doffs it. The air is cool and fresh in comparison, but the smell of burnt plastic is everywhere. Lights flicker on the brink of failure. The hallway is scorched. It looks like someone graffitied the walls with a blowtorch.

The temptation to sleep is nearly irresistible. She wipes her mouth with the back of her glove and rolls onto her back. The ceiling is ripped open. A severed cable hangs down overhead. Another coughing fit wracks her body. Fire races through high-oxygen atmospheres like this one. There's no dying of smoke inhalation. It's either escape or burn.

Cira clenches her teeth and grabs her helmet. Each movement is clumsy and delayed. A pricking sensation ripples underneath her skin. Something is inside her. Wriggling like a horsehair worm inside a cricket. She shuts her eyes for a heartbeat, but the image won't go away. It's the sort of tall story people tell in bars. The horrors of alien biologies meeting for the first time. Being digested, rotted, or parasitized; equal parts brutal and bizarre.

Except those are stories. It's impossible. But the image of a horsehair worm keeps coming back. She shakes her helmet until the sick is gone and dons it again. Every contraction of her muscles brings on a prickling sensation. Something crawling. She shoves her feelings into a box and imagines herself closing the lid. It helps.

The smell of burning plastic still stings her nose. Fire is the biggest threat. The second is another seizure: helpless on the floor, bent at odd angles, while she roasts inside her spacesuit. Cira pushes herself upright and is hit by a wave of dizziness. The corridor seems to stretch and bend. She shuts her eyes and presses the comm speaker under the lip of her helmet. It takes a few tries to get her tongue into the right shapes.

"This is Lieutenant Vega," she slurs, "to anyone on station."

Nothing.

"Lieutenant Cira Vega, Grenadier? Anyone?"

Again, nothing.

Cira opens her eyes. The corridor no longer warps in front of her, but acrid grey smoke curdles up through vents near the floor. Something inside of her draws tight like a corset. She gasps and braces herself against the wall just as an explosion thunders underneath her. The lights and klaxon abruptly go out. All sense of weight vanishes. Her head bumps the ceiling. A brightening glow shines through the damaged floor ahead of her. Another series of smaller explosions shake the station, but she feels them only as vibrations.

A radiation trefoil blinks at the bottom of Cira's visor, along with a measurement that jumps from 31 haiks to 257. The lethal dose is 600 Hk. She turns on her suit's lights and orients herself in the corridor. The life rafts are just down the hall to the right. She inhales deeply and pulls herself along the ceiling. Every move is exhausting. The prickling under her skin only gets worse. She has to pause, shut her eyes for a few seconds, and control the awareness of invasion. It takes three tries before she can move again.

Another shudder through the corridor. Cira struggles to turn the corner, but bumps into the wall and that sends her drifting in the opposite direction. It puts her in a perfect position to see a section of the floor change colour. It goes from dull red to bright red to white within seconds. She twists helplessly in midair as a burst of light blinds her. The radiation alarm wails in her ears. Her helmet bumps against what she assumes is the ceiling. She blinks tears out of her eyes and brushes her gloves against the surface. Familiar metal grating. The floor, then. Even with her eyes closed, the light is punishing. She pulls her sun visor down and dares to look.

It looks like a lightning bolt. A rope of white plasma that sprouts from Commander Sarwana's broken skull. It splits into incandescent fingerlings that stretch into the air as if the current can't find a way to ground. Sarwana's arm twitches in sympathy. But the moment the bolt touches metal, it sinks right through. Bright flames erupt on contact. Cira's commander smacks against the floor with an ignoble thud that she feels in her gut. That's when she can see his face. One eye is still intact. It swivels to look at her. The plasma withdraws from the wall and swings in her direction.

It's impossible. It must be. But every hair on Cira's neck stands on end. Commander Sarwana is most certainly dead, but he's looking at her. She pushes herself off the floor and belatedly realizes she should be electrocuted. But she's not. The extended fingerlings curl inwards and flick against one another. Little white stars blink in and out of existence. Sarwana's fingers twitch in time like he's listening to a catchy song.

Large red text flashes across Cira's central visor. IONIZING RADIATION! Each flick makes the haiks leap higher: 307 Hk ... 924 Hk ... 3038 Hk ... 7362 Hk ...

Cira's skin burns. A sharp spike of nausea upends her stomach. The floor falls out from under her. Everything goes fuzzy and dim. It's like her first solo flight all over again, except every muscle in her body is winched to the breaking point. Her vision does a slow roll and fades at the edges. She locks eyes with Sarwana. He's dead. He's dead and he's looking at her. She grunts against her will. Everything fades from view until all she can see is a tunnel of colour with Sarwana at the centre.

Blood dribbles into his eye, but he doesn't blink. He just keeps watching.

***

Something thumps against Cira's visor. Heat immediately floods her body. It feels like every hair in her body is pulled through her skin. It doesn't hurt, but it's bizarre. She blinks grit out of her yes. All she sees is light. And that prompts a whole bunch of memories she would have gladly dismissed as a nightmare. Another tap. Something round blocks the light for a second. Something's actually tapping against her helmet. The light abruptly falls away and she can get a good look.

Two people stand upside down. Their suits are compact and bright. Definitely not military. One steps forward and gives her another poke with an unfamiliar ilk of rifle. She bats it away and has the satisfaction of seeing him jump. He hits the ceiling (or floor) and the two aim at her. One gets the stance right. The other one has their elbows out like the only time they've seen a gun is in simulations. That worries her more than anything else.

"I don't know who you are," she croaks, "but you better point that somewhere else."

They don't move or respond. She resorts to hand signs. Open freq.

Even if she can't hear them, their body language says a lot. They lean towards one another. They look scared. Why they boarded a military station without monitoring military frequencies is beyond her. Commander Sarwana's stare abruptly comes back to her. She turns away as if that will block the memory out, but it doesn't. He's nowhere to be seen. Everything looks charred and neglected like a burnt out building. What little atmosphere remains is depleted of oxygen.

A loud buzzing sound saws into Cira's ears. "...Hear me?"

The voice is masculine. Tears suddenly sting her eyes. It feels like an age since she had contact with another human being."I hear you."

"Holy shit," the poker says, another masculine voice. "Holy shit!"

"I hear that, too."

He goes silent as if he really didn't expect her to respond. She looks down at her boots and realizes they're neatly tucked against the ceiling. Burns spread out from underneath her feet in fractals. It looks like a lightning flower.

"Who are you?" The first speaker asks.

"Lieutenant Vega."

"I'm Gunther. This is Bracken. Gun and Brakes for short."

"Wait, wait, wait." Brakes jabs his rifle in her direction like it has a bayonet. "You served here? In this place?"

"Of course I serve here, idiot." Cira carefully grasps one of the twisted ceiling panels and rights herself. "Those suits better have a purple rating."

"There's no radiation," Gun says tightly. "Not yet."

Cira replays the last few minutes over in her head. Had the haiks reading been an error? Gun trades his rifle for a device she doesn't recognize. He waves it in the air like he can't find reception. The screen's light flashes red then grey. Her skin tingles. A familiar prickling sensation spreads through her body. It's one of many things she can't deal with right now so she shoves it aside to scream about later.

Brakes lets out a low whistle. "You've got a higher thread count than my great great grandpappy's bedsheets."

"Thread?"

"That thing." He makes a vague gesture in her direction. "It's growing on you like grass."

Threads and grass are much nicer visuals than horsehair worms. If only he hadn't had said growing. Because that nearly pops the lid off everything she's feeling and if that happens, she's going to lose it. So she puts all those feelings back in the box, shelves them somewhere safe, and focuses on the problems at hand.

"I'm fine. I'll help with your medevac." Cira lands on the floor and squares herself up. "Have you cleared the floor?"

"What?" He turns away from the screen. "Medevac?"

"Yes, idiot." She thumps her chest and the gesture makes them flinch. "I'm a flight surgeon. Have you cleared this floor?"

They regard her silently. Finally, Gun says, "No one's left."

"You finished on the 37th level? What kind of search pattern is—"

"Everybody's dead," Brakes blurts out. "Everybody's been dead for years."

A lot of different thoughts vie for space, but what she says is, "I'm not."

He snorts. "Probably because you killed them."

Commander Sarwana's face flashes in her mind again. And that's it. Cira doesn't remember moving, but she bats the rifle out of her way. It splits in half with a gout of bright blue fire. Both men shout. She grabs hold of Brakes and shoves his sun visor back. A grubby middle-aged man stares back at her with big scared eyes.

"Don't you bullshit me." She gives him a good shake. He feels as light and flimsy as a piece of paper. "Don't you fucking bullshit me like that."

His shout becomes a scream. Red lights flash inside his helmet. Cira let's go, but when he drifts back, his suit has two hand-shaped burns. Each with fine little fractals spidering away from them. The trefoil briefly flashes ons her screen. A spike of 190 Hk. Then nothing. No secondary splash. No next wave. Nothing. She looks down at her hands. The gloves are melted. Each finger sticks together. Her suit has a purple rating, but it's melting. Just like this whole station.

The screaming brings her back. Brakes bumps against the floor, curled into fetal position. The burns certainly damaged his suit and Grenadier Station is enormous. There may be pockets of breathable atmosphere left, but that's a big gamble. Cira gives herself three seconds to get herself together and flips up her visor.

"It's burning," Brakes wails. "It's burning me up."

She curls her lip. "You got a whiff of the beating you deserve. Now quit whining."

Gun puts himself between them, rifle raised. His hands are shaking. "Touch him again. Go on. Touch him again and see what happens."

They both know he doesn't have it in him to shoot. Brakes is pale and sweaty. Going into shock. There's no way to judge how severe the burns are without removing his suit. She looks down the corridor, which is a lot narrower than she remembers. "The lifepods will have a medical kit."

He stares at her like she grew another head. "I'm not a doctor."

"I am."

"You're not touching him."

"I'll guide you through it."

Brakes' breath is loud and laboured. "I can't feel.... My fingers.... Why m'fingers...?"

That bright blue flame is front and centre in Cira's mind. She glances down at Brakes' rifle. Cleaved clean through. All she did was touch it. That's all it took. A transference of that kind of energy is catastrophic. That's the territory of fourth degree burns. Complete destruction of tissues right down to the bone.

"Gunther?" She waits until he looks her in the eye. "Move."

Something about her face transfixes him. It takes visible effort for him to rip his eyes away and grab hold of Brakes. One of the blessings of weightlessness is that whatever clothes Brakes has on underneath, they'll make minimal contact with his wounds.

"Careful," she snaps and pushes herself down the corridor. "Does his suit have a brace?"

"I think so?"

"Activate it."

It's dark so she switches on her lights. The heavy-duty coils flicker on and off. Neglect, possibly. The implications of which she really doesn't have time to think on. One of the lifepod bays is tucked into an alcove. The massive door slowly materializes out of the gloom. It's covered in scorch marks. She wipes one of the keypads clean and her glove leaves a thin smear, but the screen is dead. Each of these pod clusters have emergency backups in case of a station-wide blackout. It should be active. Unless it really has been years.

"Shit." She kicks the door.

"Am I going to die?" Brakes asks faintly.

Nobody answers him.

Cira leans her helmet against the door. Her boots are blackened and ragged. Part of the floor has been burned through to expose pipes and wires and the level below. It's then that she catches a faint glint of something wet. Something very much like a human eye. Peering up at her. Watching her without blinking. The suggestion of a body is tucked against the main power cable. Infinitesimally small white streams begin to glint in and out of sight.

"Gunther, how far away is your ship?"

"Why?"

"Because you need to get there as fast as you can."

"Why?"

She slowly unholsters her sidearm. "Just do as you're goddamned told."

The G-90 is one of the last pistols to use solid shot. A real slugger. For once, she's glad. It may not be the pick of the litter, but she doubts light-based ammunition would do much good. Gun inhales sharply behind her. There's a small tremor. He must have hit the wall to change his direction. She can feel it up through her boots. The eye immediately swivels toward him. Something in there, something not a person, quickens with interest.

"Go!" She aims at the eye and fires.

A flash of white light. Blinding. Beyond blinding. Cira holds her hand up out of instinct and she can see her bones. X-rays. The floor ripples underneath her like it's water. A tremendous explosion nearly squeezes her into paste. And she's flung upwards. She should hit the ceiling. Something solid. She doesn't. A sense of space yawns open all around her. Her eyes are open, but all she can see are spidery flicks and motes of colour. They coalesce. Clump together like dust. As she spins, smushed to one side of her suit, those motes start to reform a picture. And as that picture forms, her sense of speed diminishes. Pressure eases. The roll slows to a relatively pleasant tumble. Then disappears altogether.

When her vision returns, Cira sees nothing but starry darkness. She turns her head and gets her first look at Grenadier Station. Most of it has fragmented into pieces to form a long chain of debris. White fingerlings pierce each piece and hold them in place. Threaded is an accurate word. The station looks like it has been sutured with light.

It should be a beautiful sight. Or a terrifying one. Or both. It's getting smaller. Cira engages her suit's emergency propulsion, but nothing happens. No alarms sound in response. All this should scare her, but she doesn't feel much of anything. The outcome of this scenario is simple: she will die. Gossamer blue tendrils slowly undulate around her like siphonophores, visible only at certain angles. And because she's going to die, she doesn't have to stray very far into her feelings. She can just be an observer.

As if sensing her scrutiny, a few threads curl around her. Reacting to her like a living thing. Are they? There'll be hell to pay for a first contact like this. She holds out her finger to touch one and a frond uncurls out of that glove, as well. Her skin tingles. It can't be pure plasma because that would cook her inside out. She's inhabited by something, but instead of exploding out of her corpse, it grows and splits like a living fractal. Sedate compared to the nightmare she just ejected from.

A deep calm spirals all around her that can't be pierced by fear or grief or rage. Hypoxia? Probably. It's a much nicer way to die than burning alive. So she drifts and listens to the tide of her breath.

***

Cira opens her eyes. When had she closed them? Doesn't matter. Grenadier Station is now a tiny shining speck. It's suddenly eclipsed by something metallic and angular. A civilian craft that has no business being in Regulus System. She can see the United Sol Research and Survey Fleet insignia on its side. When its lights slide overtop her, it feels like rain. Tingling, pelting, even warm. A shape emerges from its belly. It takes a second for that to register. A person. Something in their hand. A machine. It flashes red and another shiver passes through Cira's body. Her visitor takes exaggerated care to avoid the blue streamers around her.

Something bonks her helmet. It doesn't hurt, but it's getting old. She spins a little so their faces are visible to one another. A man stares back at her. Frightened. Familiar. It's.... She frowns. It takes a while to put all the concepts together. Gunther? He's talking at her. Babbling, really. Offers her a section of heavy-duty insulate meant to go around power cables. Gun (she's pretty sure it's Gun) bonks her with it again. He looks worked up. If he's not careful, he's going to overexert himself.

Another face burbles up from memory. A scared middle-aged man. Brakes. She touched him and he nearly fried right then and there. And with one memory comes two, then four, then eight, until the entire farce bubbles back into awareness. She wishes everything would piss off, but it's too late now. She's a doctor. She can intervene. To stay out here, to not act, is itself an act.

Cira heaves a long sigh and grabs a hold of the insulate. Blue threads curl around and through it. A snap of light results in a multitude of fine little fractals. More lightning flowers. Gun's eyes nearly bulge out of his skull. If he sees that again, she's going to have to resuscitate him, too. Her radio may be out, but she gives him a look that hopefully says all that it needs to say. Quit whining.

He blinks slowly and looks up like he's looking for some divine strength. Whatever goes through his mind must be enough because he activates his suit jets in controlled bursts. They float towards the ship's underbelly a lot faster than Cira would like. The exterior airlock yawns open and light pours down on them both. Gun doesn't react, but it's like a downpour to her. All her blue little offshoots withdraw. Hot strings yanked through her skin. She shudders. It doesn't hurt, but it's as viscerally unpleasant as swallowing hair. The lights go back to normal. Or maybe they were normal all along.

Gun pulses his jets again, but they have too much momentum. He smacks against the inner door and she smacks against him. They proceed to bounce around the airlock as the exterior door close. Air floods in. A loud grinding sound reverberates through the door. They reenter a spin to simulate gravity. It's slow at first, but it feels like a mountain settles on top of Cira. She slides to the floor and lays there. Gun stays in the far corner for a while. He takes another few pictures, the tingling of which barely registers, and slowly approaches her. He touches her helmet and jerks back. After he confirms he isn't dead, he disengages the lock underneath her chin.

Fresh air floods Cira's suit. She inhales reflexively and starts coughing. Her lungs and diaphragm feel weak, unfamiliar with exertion. It actually takes concentration to keep going. She puts her hand over her mouth to mime an oxygen mask. Her arm feels like it weighs more than the entire ship. Gun stumbles over to the medical kit and rips it apart. All the components fall onto the floor. She winces on principle. He finally grabs the emergency O2 tank and rolls it to her. Looks like she's going to have to treat her goddamn self. She gives him the evil eye and picks it up. The mask seals over her nose and mouth. It takes her a few tries to unlock her gloves, but she manages. The pulse oximeter clamps around her grimy index finger. Well past time for a shower, too. She eases the valve open and takes measured breaths.

A thin blue streamer forks up toward the tank, which takes on a curious low-frequency buzz. She imagines the explosion that would result from that particular scenario and the streamer immediately withdraws. The hot pulled-through-the-skin feeling is still as weird as ever, but the threads respond to stimulus. Even abstract concepts and visual cues, which threatens to dredge up questions of how much this thing knows and is in control of. Something else to scream about later. What's most important, it (whatever it is) can perceive risk and act appropriately.

A crackle from the comm system echoes sharply inside the airlock. "What have you done?"

Gun doffs his helmet and presses his face against the inner door's window. "This one's a doctor. She can help"

Cira takes a few deep breaths and gasps out, "With what?"

He stares at her like she's the idiot. "Brakes. He's dying."

The voice on comm is flat and hard to gender. "There's no way I'm letting one of those puppets inside."

"They never talk," he shouts. "Her name's on the roster. She's really a doctor. We're contaminated already, why not give it a shot?"

"I'm right here," Cira mumbles.

There's a long long silence from whoever is inside. "We'll bring Brakes to you. If you can't save him from in there, I'll vent all three of you."

"Fine." Gun slams his fist against the door.

It's all for show. From what Cira's seen so far, if one of the threads made contact with any part of this craft, the metal would melt like wax. She focuses on her own breathing. The possibility of going back out into space isn't all that unattractive. But that ugly sense of responsibility rears its head again. If she can't even bother with an attempt to save Brakes' life, she's a bigger asshole than he is.

Shapes flit in the window. Gun backs off. The airlock slowly opens with a dramatic shush of air. Two people in mismatched suits stand there with Brakes on a stretcher between them. They haul him in and set him on the opposite side of the room and then retreat. Their helmets all remain trained on her with no attention spared for Gun. The inner airlock shushes closed again. That's all the ceremony they get. If there's a more anti-climactic way to place someone's life in a stranger's hands, she has yet to see it.

The concept of standing up feels like a herculean effort. But Cira moves the O2 tank to one side and pushes herself into a sitting position. Her heart hammers against her sternum. When was the last time she worked in gravity? It feels like a long time.

"Get the rest of that kit." She points at everything littered on the ground. "How's he looking?"

Gun jumps to obey. "Bad."

"Ugh." Her breaths take on a distracting whistle. "Bad how?"

"Chalky. Kinda blue."

"Pulse?"

"Yeah."

Cira nearly asks if he's being a wiseass, but Gun's hands shake while bent over the medical kit. Body intact, mind in tatters. She braces herself against the wall before trying to stand. The effort makes her face flush with heat. Her lungs don't feel big enough to get all the air she needs. But she keeps going and after a few agonizing seconds, she actually stands upright.

"Your friend," she gasps, "is still getting a beating...after this."

"That's fair."

She crosses the airlock with no small amount of effort. It would be impossible without supplemental oxygen. Gun dumps the medical kit on the floor again like that's how it's done. It tells her a lot. Obviously no medical training. And if one of the crew is in such bad shape for so long, it means no access to a robotic doctor or remote surgery. No backup. No consultation. Not even a cup of coffee.

Cira takes off her other glove and drops to her knees. Her own pain glides out of focus. Brakes is naked from the waist up. He has his own O2 supplement, which looks to be the extent of his treatment. Two red hands are imprinted on his chest. Intricate Lichtenberg figures radiate out across his skin in raised fractal patterns that already sport blisters. His arms and legs are mottled and blue. She grabs the finger clamp that everyone neglected to put on Brakes' index finger. The readout immediately lights up and begins to bleat. A widely spaced saw-toothed squiggle enlarges over his other readings.

"What? What's that mean?" Gun hovers beside her.

"V-tach." At his panicked look, she summons the energy to elaborate. "His heart is beating too fast."

The alarm bleats three distinct tones to signal a change. The pattern onscreen starts devolving into erratic peaks and valleys. Ventricular fibrillation. Brakes' heart quivers like an injured bird, unable to pump blood. She grabs the defibrillator and unhooks two thin paddles. Each has a sterilized cover with conductive jelly. She rips the covers off and the jelly immediately changes colour as it activates. She places one above Brakes' heart and the other by his ribs. The defibrillator automatically begins to charge and she can feel the hum through her body.

"Move back," Cira orders. Gun nearly does a somersault to obey. She holds her hand up in the All Clear gesture for the defibrillator's AI and it delivers a shock. The screen blanks for a moment, then resumes its irregular quivering. The pattern is weaker than before. It changes from tall peaks and valleys to shallow ones. Mountains to foothills. It's fine v-fib. Brakes' blood pressure and oxygen saturation remain firmly in the shitter. Asystole isn't far away.

"I did CPR," Gun gasps like he's the one who needs oxygen. "I tried."

He completely genuine. It's the only reason Cira wastes energy to say, "That's what kept him alive this long."

She makes another All Clear sign and the defibrillator delivers a higher shock. The screen clears and then returns to fine v-fib. He could've been slipping in and out of v-tach for hours. It's survivable in little bursts, but it makes her wonder how long Brakes' brain has been without oxygen. If they bring him back, how much of him will be left?

Gun leans back against the wall. "Come on, come on."

Cira gives another All Clear and the defibrillator AI delivers the highest shock. The screen clears. A few peaks and valleys show up. Something like a proper rhythm. But it quickly deteriorates into a feeble squiggle with no identifiable rhythm at all. The alarm changes to an unbroken high-pitched note.

"Is he dead?" Gun moves like he's about to grab her shoulder, then quickly reconsiders it. "Are you giving up? He always goes down fighting. Meet him half—"

"This is just round two." She wipes sweat out of her eye. "Get me those red barrels and start a clock."

"Why?"

He does as he's told so she doesn't bother answering.

What's left of a shockable rhythm quickly slips into asystole. Brakes' heart surrenders all electrical activity. She holds out her hand and one of the red-lined injection barrels lands in her palm. There's a tide in this room and it's quickly carrying Brakes away from shore. She traces the grooves of his chest until the barrel's laser does a quick blink. That's the target. A needle snaps forward and she drives it home. The plunger immediately pushes a full dose of adrenaline.

"Epi's in," she gasps out between breaths. "Got any more CPR left in you, Gunther?"

"I've got all you need, el-tee."

He lines up on the other side of Brakes and the defibrillator beeps to recognize the switch to CPR. It clicks and waits for him to begin the cycle. He puts one hand on top of the other and starts compressions. It's an old technique, but nobody's invented one that can beat it. After 30 compressions, she holds up her hand and Gun stops. The defibrillator instructs the O2 tank to alter its flow. Brakes' chest rises twice, then remains still. She nods to Gun and he resumes the next compression cycle. When the AI calls the three minute mark, she administers another shot of adrenaline.

It's pure brute persistence at this point. They get up to nine minutes and Cira injects the last shot of adrenaline. Gun doesn't notice. He pours everything he has into the next compression. It's not something people can do very long, but he shows no sign of giving up. In this light, his face looks younger and a lot harder. Whatever fear rattles around his head is completely gone. She lets him work until the twelve minute mark. When he looks to her for the next shot of adrenaline, she shakes her head.

"Time."

"No," Gun does a compression to emphasize each word, "it isn't."

Cira sucks in a raspy breath and examines Brakes' face. He's still in a way living people can't replicate. Every muscle in his body is relaxed. His eyes are half-open, nearly hidden beneath his eyelashes, and hold no awareness.

She holds up her hand. Gun glares at her, but when it's clear she's not throwing in the towel, he obeys. She removes both paddles and turns them onto their sides. A small sterile prong juts out like the tail of a stingray. MIDD: Minimally Invasive Direct Defibrillation. It's the stuff of textbooks. Something she remembers remembering. No one does it anymore without robotic assist, but there's nothing left to lose. She aligns each prong and waits. Sterile gel forms a deceptively strong seal over the injection site to prevent the introduction of air. She takes a deep breath and pushes through the skin. After elastic resistance, the prongs slide in. She shuts her eyes and goes on muscle memory. The heart is nestled off-centre behind the sternum. She has to access it from the left side without hitting any ribs.

Gun jumps like he received a shock. "What are you doing?"

"Direct defib." Cira waits for the AI to signal proper placement. It takes a while as if it can't believe this, either. "Last round."

The defibrillator dials its electric current down. She adjusts her grip until each prong touches the heart. It's a tough, angular muscle that has no business being still. She opens her eyes and draws in a ragged breath. "Gunther."

He stares at her for a full three seconds. "Oh, yeah. Big red one, right?"

If she had the energy to cuff him, she would. He manually activates the defibrillator and it gives three warning beeps before delivering current. Brakes' heart clenches and relaxes like a fist. She waits, but there's no movement. Nothing on screen. A wave of dizziness nearly knocks her over, but she manages to catch herself.

Gun peers over at her. "You still here?"

Cira doesn't waste her breath. She nods towards the defibrillator. He manually activates it again. And again, Brakes' heart clenches and relaxes. Her hands lose feeling and strength. When she looks down, she catches sight of glossy little threads winding down the prongs and towards Brakes' chest.

Will it burrow into him? Turn him into another Commander Sarwana? She grits her teeth and tries to pull away. Nothing happens. Her arms don't respond. Her mouth doesn't open. Her voice stays silent. All she can do is watch as those same threads pierce Brakes' chest. A tingling charge starts from her hands and fills her from head to toe. It feels like she had an injection of adrenaline. Staying still is agony, but she can't move. Her index finger twitches. Suddenly all the energy intensifies. Coils, spring-loaded, ready to take flight.

An incandescent flash. Afterimages of nerves and blood vessels are stamped on Cira's eyes. Brakes flexes underneath her like a single muscle. He chokes, releases a deep animal scream, and starts clenching up. Her paralysis immediately wears off. A hot strained-through-the-skin feeling. Voices. No one touches her.

The floor slams into Cira's back. She doesn't remember toppling over. One of the airlock's lights rains directly overhead. It's eclipsed by Gun's ecstatic face. He's talking too fast. Blubbering again. It's hard to read his lips. His face creases with panic. The only word she recognizes is el-tee.

The ceiling swims in and out of focus. She never allowed herself to really think about this as a case of parasitism. Not just another story about first contact. An actual encounter with an actual alien. Isolation should protect them from something like this. How can a species parasitize another with no shared history? It should be impossible. Humans are large, complex vertebrates, host to a multitude of microorganisms working in tandem to maintain homeostasis. The nervous system is particularly delicate. To exploit it requires a degree of finesse that doesn't just happen.

Yet these threads can do all that and more. They completely permeate the body without any sort detectable immune response. To—what? Feed? Reproduce? Relying on a host that it has never encountered before? It's not possible. Everything she understands about medicine forbids it.

el-tee

But it's real. There must be more like Commander Sarwana, maybe the entire station is full of entities like him. Cira can't forget that eye. Something looking at her that isn't her commander, that isn't even human, recognizing her presence. Is she so different? Is she even herself? She remembers nothing before those first painful moments in the corridor. Is this amnesia or are her thoughts and feelings really her own? Maybe this personality is a veneer. Manufactured after the fact to better approach other hosts. Or maybe this is pure psychosis and she's really in a hospital. It's more rational to be irrational than inhabited.

"Not possible," she mumbles from a distance. "Not possible not possible."

el-tee

Which does sound pretty irrational.

"El-tee!" Gun's voice cuts through the static. He swims back into focus, still above her, still looking as panicky as a five-year-old. "You're going to set that tank off."

Cira blinks rapidly. Something's rattling. It's the paddles. She holds them so tightly, her hands are numb. They tremble against one another. Their trembling makes her tremble. Or is it the other way around? Flashes of light snap around her. That low thrum again. Strong enough to reverberate through her bones. It's like she can hear every molecule spinning through the air. All the threads are out, curling and uncurling. A few stray dangerously close to her O2 supply. This thing can take out a military station, but it can't make sense of air.

She starts to laugh. It sounds unhinged even to her.

Smoke rises in thin translucent wisps. Cira looks at the floor and immediately goes quiet. The threads are searing a pattern into the floor. Fractal patterns interwoven with familiar shapes. Eyes. Not a pair. Not different sorts plucked from memories or imagination. One eye drawn over and over again. Commander Sarwana stares back at her from every angle. A man she has no recollection of besides his name and rank. Maybe that's all it is. One of her own dragged around like a broken doll. But the clarity of those burns makes her shiver. And Cira knows that, whatever else might be true about her, she doesn't accommodate fear. Not in others and not in herself. She stares at those eyes until the trembling stops.

The threads stop flexing and unfurling. Maybe this is their response to stress. Or their response to the cascade of hormones released when a human being is stressed. She tucks her chin in so the O2 tank is safely stuck against her suit's helmet ring. A soft moan filters into her awareness. Gun kneels between herself and Brakes and stares at the newly decorated floor. Brakes himself looks to be breathing. Pale, clammy, with another pair of fractal burns on his chest. The prong insertion points are cauterized pink nubs. One of the reasons for robotic assist is to prevent free air from entering the body. The threads may have accomplished just that.

Cira's learning to anticipate the hot pulled-through-skin feeling, but it's still gross. She drags herself out of the ring of eyes. It feels like she's dragging half the galaxy along with her. Brakes moans again and his arm glops across his chest. His fingers catch on the two prong burns as his eyes open. He draws in a loud, grating breath and traces the rest of his chest.

"Four...?" Brakes blinks slowly. "Why I got four nipples?"

Gun barks out a laugh. "You weren't alive to stop me." He cups Brakes' head in the crook of his arm and slides one leg underneath his back to act as a support.

"No more nipples," Brakes mutters.

"No more dying."

Looks like Cira won't need to bother with assessing her patient's level of consciousness. But the way Brakes and Gun sit together nearly squeezes her throat shut. Grief roils up from some deep fracture inside her. All feeling with no memory to give it shape. She flops onto her side by the external airlock. The cold seeps through her exposed skin, equal parts pleasant and heavy. The O2 tank's light blinks red. She pulls it off and what little strength is left in her arms evaporates. The tank rolls out of her hand and clinks against the enormous bay door. That tiny vibration trills through her body.

All the threads in her body synch tight. Cira wheezes just as another vibration trills through her. It's not tiny at all. The ship's klaxon starts to wail. Her skeleton feels like one big tuning fork.

"Gunther!" The voice over comm thunders overhead. "Pilot seat now."

Brakes lets out a raspy laugh. "Junior's pissed."

Even with the klaxon wailing at full pitch, Cira can feel something shift. That feeling of rain. Except it's hot. She looks up at the large external airlock and a patch just above the window is bright red. It spreads in thin feather patterns. If she looks hard enough, she can see delicate gossamer threads of this—organism. Something thumps against the door. A headless shape moves across the window. The suit is dark grey, burnt and blasted, with the familiar patches of Grenadier Station.

"What in galactic hell is that?" Gun demands before another thump resonates through the airlock. "What is that?"

Cira builds up enough breath to respond. "Go."

"El-tee?"

"I'll be fine." Every syllable takes effort to lift off her tongue. "Get your dumb asses out of here."

A strange feeling washes over her. It's as if every particle in her body, every quanta of her existence, is picking up a new frequency. She hears Gun pleading behind her. Brakes gasping. The subtle grind of the inner airlock door opening and closing. They're out of harm's way. That's her duty done. That's all that matters.

Glowing red fronds expand across the door. The airlock's thick metal plates begin to warp. Silver rivulets trail towards the floor. The threads inside her synch even tighter. Her whole body tightens up when everything explodes. The doors fail. The shrieks of fatigued metal are carried away with the air. Her ears pop. The lights go out. Something skims her shoulder. The defibrillator. It spins out into space, the light from its screen quickly drowned out by distance. She tries to breathe on instinct, but there's no air to draw in. It should trigger panic. An instinctive gasping. Nothing happens. Vacuum should rip moisture and gas out of her body. But a crisscross of neon blue threads squeeze her tight. This thing is compensating for loss of atmospheric pressure with mechanical pressure. It understands what she needs and provides it. So how does it provide oxygen?

Cira's question evaporates in white light. She looks up and sees this lifeform, really sees it, for the first time. It's bright and thin like lightning. Enormous is an understatement. There aren't many visual cues to tell just how big it is, but it occupies the entire horizon. Larger than Grenadier Station certainly. Something tells Cira that it's much, much larger than that.

Out in space, this organism is as brilliant as an aurora. Gently undulating to create movement. Or maybe sailing on light from Regulus. Commander Sarwana's corpse is tiny by comparison. He looks pathetic rather than grotesque. Battered like lost freight. If this creature is trying to inhabit him like the blue threads inhabit her, the difference in scale is insurmountable. No wonder his skull burst. It would be like trying to fit this ship into a glove.

Fingerlings reach towards Cira. She struggles to move, to flop over, to do anything but wait there like an idiot. It feels like she's glued in place. When she looks, fine blue filaments cling to the plates underneath her. Its fractals mar the airlock floor. So this is why she didn't get jettisoned along with the atmosphere. Which would be very impressive if she could use this to make an escape.

The white light makes contact. Hurt doesn't do the feeling justice. Cira screams. There's no air to scream into, but it reverberates through her chest. Her vision slides into greyscale. She sweats and shivers. Wants to vomit, but doesn't have the strength to follow through. It's like being lowered into boiling water. Except it doesn't stop. No nerve death. No relief. It keeps pushing into her, beyond white-hot, beyond scalding.

Her threads let go of the floor. Cira barely feels it, but the force of energy pushes her back towards the inner airlock. If this thing touches that door, it'll cut through. The whole ship will breach. All her work will be for nothing. She grits her teeth and tries to parcel the pain away. Set enough of it aside to function. It's hard. Involuntary tears pour down her face. Her back hits the wall and she's pushed right up against the airlock. Prongs of lightning pierce her chest, but they don't go all the way through. Not yet.

Cira grabs one prong. It doesn't melt her hand, but it could. The organism is thin and flexible like high-strength cable, but prickles like frayed rope. She pulls down instead of away. The sheer weight of it is impossible to resist. But she pours every once of will into resisting anyway. A hum starts to build inside her. It gets into her teeth and behind her eyes. Blue threads peel away from the tight crisscrosses on her suit and form a loop. It looks like a rainbow with only shades of blue. The loop tightens and twists as more individual threads join it. Something taut begins to form in Cira's core. It feels like sucking something in. Mustering everything into a single spot. The loop begins to darken. Vibrations spread into her skeleton. Her teeth chatter. It's like she has to physically expand to accommodate what's happening.

The loop snaps. Cira's crushed against the wall. A fiery blue arc slams into the lightning and drives it clear off the ship. Those prongs rip clear of her body. The pain skyrockets, then finally eases. If she had the energy, she'd cry with relief. Sarwana's corpse disintegrates in a burst of light. The white threads snap and curl erratically. It hesitates, then drives back towards the airlock. Fingerlings form on her own threads and snap against one another. Azure starlets blink in and out of existence. Whatever it means, it's not enough.

More threads start to lift off her suit. They form into another lightning shape and deepen to indigo. The most forward streamers arch like upraised claws. What remains of the external airlock door begins to glow. It looks like a threat display, but the larger thread doesn't respond. It keeps driving towards Cira without a care. Grenadier Station is outfitted with Sol military's most advanced hull armour. If this lifeform can burn through that, it can burn through anything or anyone.

Those blue streamers dig into the white threads with an explosion of light and heat. Cira throws up an arm to protect herself and a shudder runs through the ship. When she dares to look, her blue threads are wrapped around the white like an angry snake. Each streamer tears the larger organism apart. It jerks and writhes, but doesn't fight back. Like it doesn't really understand what's happening. Size isn't the deciding factor, it's aggression, and her little blue parasite is all ferocity. It digs into the main trunk of its adversary and rips it in two. She can feel the exertion through her skin. The severed dendrites immediately dim and die off. The rest of the white threads contract so fast it's nearly out of sight by the time Cira realizes it's leaving.

She slumps against door. Her legs neatly fold underneath her. Frigid metal menaces her exposed skin. If her head or hands made contact, she'd be stuck. But the suit's connection rings keeps her clear even when she slumps over. Sarwana's eyes stare at her from their circle on the floor. Nothing can hurt him now.

The blue thread shakes itself. Actually shakes itself. Dead filaments fall to the floor in a haze. Its colour begins to lighten, but not before it huffs out a small wave of heat. Probably a way to clean itself, but Cira likes to think it's more along the lines of, "And don't come back, motherfucker."

This thing, this—entity, drifts towards her. A sentient bundle of threads. Well, Thread may be more appropriate. It hovers over her and she gets the feeling that it's watching her, too. Fingerlings sprout and make that flicking gesture again. More stars. If she were still breathing, she'd sigh, but she stopped somewhere along the way.

Cira dredges up the energy to curl her fingers in a similar manner. Thread repeats the flicking gesture and she copies it. Several blue threads wind around her fingers like they're trying feel out a familiar shape. It prickles, it doesn't hurt, but it gets more intense. Vibrations resonate through their connection. Her body. Everywhere at once. The absolute exhaustion she feels starts to lose its edges. She recognize patterns of tight fizzing from the walls and floor. It feels like laying across a row of bees. This feeling hooks into a concept and hauls it to the surface. A solid. This is how a solid is described. Molecules locked in formation.

Is this what the hot rain really is? Is she perceiving particles in states of matter? This must be how threads perceive reality. Everything buzzing and bound in peculiar ways. Atoms accumulating in patterns; building up to another level of reality utterly alien to those not born to it. Dense clouds of particles moving through other dense clouds of particles. Unintelligible chaos except for long glimmering thickets of light. Not neurones or bones or blood. Not people. Worlds.

Their connection ends with an abrupt snap.

Thread arches into its threat posture and faces the breach. A head and two lights pop up in the top left corner of the airlock. They raise a scanner and another tingling wave passes over Cira. Startling, but not painful. Thread jabs it with a single streamer and what she assumes is a delicate instrument blacks out and melts. The spacewalker throws it away and checks their gloves for any damage. A white insulated tarp drifts into view behind them.

Gun. It has to be. Nobody else on this ship will come near Cira. Thread lightens as if in response to this thought. Maybe it really can perceive what she's thinking, which is useful and terrifying. Thread makes another few flicks before reeling itself back into crisscross formation against her suit.

And that, she supposes, is one way to start a dialogue with an alien parasite.

***

"This is stupid," Cira croaks.

Gun sighs. "I know."

"Shouldn't you be driving this thing?"

"I delegated."

"Brakes?"

"Alive enough to complain." A long silence. "He's sorry for earlier. Didn't say it, but I can tell."

She watches the white tarp sag over her face as the air pressure increases. "I fried him so guess we're even."

That gets a raspy laugh. Neither of them are in the best shape. She tries to ignore the pain and the slow strained-through-skin feeling as Thread retreats. None of its streamers have poked through the tarp.

"You said something before. Puppets that don't talk." She takes another breath and it's easier this time. "Are there more people like me?"

"Plenty like that other guy. Parts threaded up. But not like you."

"No survivors?"

"Uh-uh."

"What...?" She clears the lump in her throat. "What happened?"

"Shit if I know. I thought Grenadier was a ghost story."

"I thought a reactor breach. Solar flare. Something normal."

"Normal?" Gun's helmet casts a shadow over the tarp as he looks down at her. "We found you hanging upside down like a bat."

She actually laughs. It helps loosens up the grief sitting tight in her chest. "So...aliens."

"Aliens."

"Weird."

"Preach it, el-tee."

The invocation of rank is comforting. Cira quashes all the warm bubblies, but the offer of camaraderie hangs between them. "What's with that thing you're always pointing at me?"

"It's for scanning a reactor shield, but it picks up threads just as well."

"You can't see them?"

"No, can you?" Gun half-turns towards her. "What do they look like?"

"Lightning bolts, giant neurones, take your pick. Sometimes they do this." She lifts her hand from under the tarp and mimics the flicking motion. "It throws off these weird sparks and some radiation."

"Must mean something."

"It means everyone on this can needs to get their thyroids checked."

A quiet hiss marks the end of the airlock's repressurization cycle. Gun guides her into the ship like a white tarp will make her invisible, but it's so ridiculous no one would expect it. They walk down hallway after hallway. What's left of her adrenaline is steadily fizzling out. She pauses and leans against the wall. It's much easier to breathe than when she first came onboard, but if she doesn't lay down soon, she's going to drop.

"We can't stop," Gun whispers.

"I know." She gulps a few deep breaths and pushes forward. "I better get a shitload of back pay for this."

"From United Sol military? Good fucking luck."

"I didn't think you served."

"Long time ago."

They finally stop walking. Cira squints through the tarp, but can't see much of anything. It's only when the a door slides open that she realizes they've finally reached their destination. She walks inside and nearly runs into Gun. The silence is different in here. Charged. They're not alone.

"What," says the hard flat voice from comm, "is going on?"

"Hello, Captain Skorda."

"Is that what I think it is?"

"Maybe?"

"Why does it have a tarp on it?"

"I lost my RAD-SCAN, but this way I can see any threads in real time."

The silence goes from charged to astounded.

"It worked," Gun says defensively. "See? No snapping."

"So dumb, it's smart," Brakes croaks somewhere to her right. "I'm so proud."

"You may have saved my life, but there is a limit to my gratitude. Bringing a...hostile onboard my ship without my permission is definitely beyond that limit."

"Oh, cut the shit." Cira flips the tarp off her face and surveys the room. It's marked by burns from gunfire and makes her keenly aware of her empty holster. "Looks like you've had some trouble."

"Yes."

The hard voice belongs to a tall, deceptively young man in dark USRS greys. The uniform is crisply pressed, but bloodied. A gold Terran circle and stripes show that he's the captain. His face is swollen and bruised. That beak of a nose looks broken and poorly reset. He regards her coldly, but she can see a well-mastered fear in his face. Brakes watches her from the Intensive Care Unit on the opposite side of the room. He lays inside a pod that's smaller than any ICU she's ever seen, but he looks decidedly less dead than before.

She examines one of the scorch marks. "What's this about?"

Gun opens his mouth, but the captain beats him to it. "You tell us."

"I woke up on that wreck and everybody was dead." Cira faces him square on. "Doesn't mean I've forgotten what a fire fight looks like."

Skorda crosses his arms.

She pinches the bridge of her nose. "If Thread wanted to destroy this ship, it would destroy the ship, and I wouldn't be standing here like a jackass."

Gun looks at her, scandalized. "You named it?"

"If I keep calling it a parasite, I'll lose my mind."

"Can't call it Thread," Brakes pipes up. "That's like calling a dog Dog."

"Do you have giant space lightning living in your body? No? Then I'll call it whatever I want. And don't think I won't beat your ass once you're better."

He laughs hoarsely. "Yes, ma'am."

Cira shuffles over to one of the bed and sits down. Pain zings through her body. She exhales a long shaky breath and puts a hand over the wound in her chest. When she looks at the captain, she can see how hard that fear wants to burst free. This vessel isn't designed for tactical missions. They're alone and vulnerable out here. If that white thread comes back, there's nothing he can do and he knows it.

She hangs her head for a moment. "Allowing one of these aliens onboard must seem like suicide. I can't guarantee that it isn't." A prickling sensation races through her skin and she suppresses a wince. "But you obviously lack medical staff and I have those skills."

"Would you accept the risk if our positions were reversed?"

"No," Cira admits, "but Brakes needs watching."

"After you electrocuted him."

"Which is why I won't give him the satisfaction of dying."

Brakes gives a thumbs up. "Ayyy."

Skorda shoots him a look that could snuff out a star. The odds are against him and he knows it. If push comes to shove, he can't force her to leave. She's not so sure she'd leave voluntarily, either. Not if it means drifting through interstellar space and abandoning Grenadier. What happened to her, to everyone, demands a response. And though she'd rather die than admit it out loud, the prospect of leaving human company behind opens a pit in her stomach. People need people. It's biology.

Gun squares his shoulders and looks somewhat dignified. "You saw the feed, Captain. Without her, we'd be dead and threaded."

"Yes, now we've all been exposed to these lifeforms." The lines in Skorda's face become more pronounced, which makes him look older than he really is. Blood dribbles from his nose and he brushes it away absently. "The alien. What's its disposition?"

It's hard to achieve any kind of detachment, but Cira doesn't respond until she can set her feelings aside. "Smart in a way. Curious. Mellow compared to that other one, but if provoked...."

"Not so mellow."

"Could be territorial. I don't know yet."

"You plan to study it?"

"The hell else would I do? It's a little hard to ignore."

Some tension leaves Skorda's face. He grasps Cira's hand and holds his breath. They all do. Thread doesn't stir. She pulls away, but he digs his fingernails into her skin. The prickling stops. Heat flashes across her fingers. Blinding white-blue light. A hum rattles her bones together.

She snatches her hand back and hisses. Involuntary tears blur her vision. She wipes the excess moisture away with the back of her hand. Pale crescents show where Skorda dug in, but there's no blood. "You're lucky you didn't break skin."

Skorda is nearly doubled over, hand cradled against his chest. He angles his head when she speaks and slowly unfurls to his full height. His face is a rictus of pain. Red feathery patterns spread across his skin. Another Lichtenberg figure not unlike Brakes'. Except a long and distinct burn across his uniform aims directly at his heart. He traces the line with two fingers.

"I think that's its way of saying fuck off," Gun mumbles. He's too busy rubbing his eyes to notice the captain's expression, which is probably for the best.

Cira glares at Skorda. "You could've been vaporized."

"Either this lifeform is capable of restraint or it's not. Pyrrhic protocols deal with the rest."

Gun shivers like he's cold and Brakes sags back into his bed. Pyrrhic protocols are reserved for military vessels. If the ship's AI loses the captain's vitals, it initiates self-destruct. An insurance policy to prevent sensitive information or cargo from falling into the wrong hands.

She sits back against the wall and suppresses the pain that follows. Thread prickles up and down her body, not quite pushing through her skin, but close. Skorda watches her as if he can sense it, too.

"That wound will need tending to," he says.

"Later." Cira leans her head against the wall. "After I attend to four-tits over here."

Brakes sputters, but doesn't have a response.

"So you're staying? For real?" Gun looks at her and seems younger than ever.

Her gaze darts back to Skorda. Underneath his wariness is something else. Something a lot more complicated. He could've kept the protocol to himself as is expected, but he didn't. That means something.

"Yeah," she says. "I guess I am."