Grigory knelt in front of the chair, his hairless face twisted in a wide grin supporting hostile brown eyes. His tattooed lips framed his teeth, thin skin completing the impression of the skull beneath his face. Meghan checked the bindings then stood and turned towards him.

"Grigory, she never did anything bad to us. We could leave her alone."

"It's all up to the boss, Megs. The one paying the bills. Hey Layla, there’s someone wants to have a talk with you." Grigory's lips twisted into a sneer. "That little fuck bot you've been fondling is a Uran agent," Grigory said. "Sent us videos. How about that?"

His foot stepped on something and the chair slid a centimeter as the locks holding the wheels were released. Meghan's arm wrapped around Layla's upper chest, and her face came close. "I've always trusted you. Sorry it came to this."

Layla shivered at the touch. Something heavy and cold slipped through the open back of the rolling chair, under her shirt and into the waist-strap of her still-wet sleeping gown. Grigory traded places with Meghan and pushed the chair. Layla spread her fingers, brushing the hard shape with the back of her knuckles.

The heavy cruiser's scarred blue bulk hovered next to the Suijin. A primary docking port bridged the ships. The Suijin's exterior cameras were trained on the ship, displaying video and diagnostic data. Meghan stared at the display of the floating behemoth and was glad to be away from it. Technicians scrambled behind her, shouting at her to move out of the way. Grigory had left while she stared, knowing she didn't want to watch what was about to happen. They were methodically disconnecting the cables of the ship's artificial consciousness. The computer was smaller than she had expected. Meghan watched them reconfiguring the Eres core for uplink to the Quorum cruiser.

Grigory pushed the chair down the long hallway, tracing the spine of the ship. Half the length of the ship was passed as Grigory casually pushed the chair towards the control room. He uttered insults and slurs, unaware that he was more guilty of the charges than his hostage. Through the doors, Layla recognized the form of the lone figure operating the manual controls of the cruiser, keeping the technicians alive while they dissected the ship's brain a half-kilometer away.

Ina turned and walked with a limp out of the flight deck. Her face twisted into a pointed grin that was too wide. The skin had been stretched beyond limits and took the form of a macabre mask. Small cracks oozed fluid the color of diluted blood. Grigory's foot shifted to a lever, locking the chair in place.

Layla started to speak, and then bit her tongue as Ina grabbed at a bit of skin through the soggy sleeping clothes. Clumsy fingers clamp tightly and twisted. Layla groaned, tasting blood in her mouth, and wondering how it had gotten there.

"Ina, what? Why?"

Ina spoke in a tone both mocking and inhuman, “Because. I want to. There’s this expression, ‘full of shit’, when a human tells a lie. When do you not lie? You taste like shit, Layla. You smell like shit. Feces coats your flesh. You are a thing whose sole function is to convert raw material into shit. Foulness festers within you, fills your blood. Your body is rotting, and those little bits inside of you that slow down the rot are busy scraping shit out of your blood. When you’re dead, you’ll achieve your true form, a mass of decay. You should understand, then, that what I’m offering is freedom from that cycle."

Ina continued. "This is a gift. They’ll be food for only one more cycle, just another hundred kiloseconds. Then you all become the body of glory, and in freeing them along with you, I’ll become whole. I'm disgusted with myself. What I've done with you. What I am and what I'll become. This will pass. These moments will be as if they never were."

Layla’s legs tensed against the strap binding her ankles to the frame of the chair. Ina batted Layla's head to the side with her open palm, raising a pink glow against the red-haired woman's pale cheek. Grigory squealed a high pitched laugh and steadied the chair as Ina's fists dove into Layla's abdomen, one after the other, ten blows struck in rhythm. Her stomach started to heave and Layla leaned forward. As Ina stepped out of the path of the mess, Layla's legs broke free, snapping out, catching Ina's hips.

The blow knocked the pair apart as the chair rocked back. The robot form recoiled, grin rising higher. No lips moved as a synthesized voice ordered Grigory to pull Layla up from the chair. He did, his hands moving to the side of Layla's breasts, and pressing and lifting with such force that she gasped, struggling to breathe.

Her feet dangling a centimeter above the floor, Layla pulled the trigger on the small pistol Meghan had left, and wondered if his lover knew Grigory's life would end this way. After a jolt, Layla found her balance and let her weight settle on her own feet, knees bent in front of her.

Grigory coughed, spitting blood into Layla's crimson hair. He stumbled backwards and fell to the floor with a wet splat, fully disemboweled by the pistol shot. Layla startled at the sick fluid that dripped onto her neck, pivoting to her right so she could point the gun at Ina, her hands still tied behind her back.

"Oh, Layla, please don't hurt me," the robot mocked, stepping closer. Ina's head snapped to the side sharply. "My evil sister has stolen my body. Darling please don-"

The mechanical voice was cut off by three practiced blasts from the pistol. The first went wide and high, clipping the wall behind Ina’s shoulder, leaving a small smoldering hole, while the second and third landed home. Ina stared at her torso for a second, surprised by the smoking craters that had appeared, each the size of a finger, surrounded by molten material from the plasticky Uran uniform. The jarred form collapsed to the floor, twitching.

"Oh, lover, you rancid sack of rotten meat, I do think I hate you now."

Layla squatted next to Grigory's body and searched until she found his communicator and a knife, both tethered on a false-leather belt hanging below his ruined hip. Her feet were soaked in his blood. The knife cut through the restraints. She entered Arius' communicator ID by memory and sent a message, asking for help at the control room. Layla checked the pistol: one of her own. Meghan must have taken the weapon from the Destiny. It could fire only five shots before the magazine was exhausted. Layla considered placing the last shot between the robot's eyes.

The technicians, working inside the insulated computer room, were unaware of what had been happening just a few hundred meters behind them. They completed their work and Eres came online. A cold synthetic voice pounded through the hallways of the science cruiser Suijin. To a few, the timbre of the warning seemed familiar.

"I will vent this ship to vacuum in two kiloseconds. You will board the heavy cruiser Eres immediately through docking passage Alpha."

Layla stared at Ina’s body, twisting and writhing on the floor as the wounds continued to fume. Molten plastic dripped from armor. Layla turned and ran. She pressed a button to call a transport tube, and as one opened, she darted into the tiny chamber, eyes unfocused, and collided with Arius. Instinctively, he wrapped his arms around her and stared at her face where a shining purple welt had formed.

"Arius, do you think we can override a ship core?"

"Not a chance."

"So let's go." Layla tried to turn her head towards the corridor, but she couldn’t find the energy to move. "Let's just go."

Arius nodded, stepped backwards, and punched the tube controls, returning to the deck he came from. Still moving and towing the shaken girl, Arius sent a message to Parasite. "Nevermind. Got Layla. We're getting out of here."

***

The small child, ebony skin glowing under the sun, smiled up at the woman. His hair was shoulder-length, curly and thick, and his face was full of life. Familiar green eyes blazed with intent.

The woman watched herself kneel. Her face was plain, her body was a blur in the dream. "Who are you?"

"You know who I am, Ina Kurosawa. You're almost done. I need one more thing from you. I will help you all I can. You have to kill what I created."

"David...?"

"Ina, he's almost there. Wake up, guide him, so we can end this. If you don't, the people you care about are going to die, so you must stand for only another moment. I'll be here, with you, until the end."

"I understand. I'll do what you want, but promise me something... protect them until this is over. Tell them. Ensure they know the truth of what happened here."

"Done."

Ina nodded, turning, and walked away. The boy grinned, confident that he had succeeded. The boon would be a small price to pay, less than he had expected.

***

Parasite emerged from the tube and found Grigory's bloody mess in front of the entrance of the control room. He received Arius' message at the same time as he laid eyes on Ina's body.

Ina's head raised and she look at Parasite, twitching and damaged. "John. Help me. Parasite?"

Parasite shook his head. Another message from Arius - stating simply that Ina had betrayed them, that she was working with the Ura, and that they needed to meet at the docking hatch on the cruiser. Parasite looked towards the collapsed form, eyes searching for a weapon.

"Now... I can't." He turned to leave.

"Parasite, we have to stay. We have to kill Eres. I can't do this alone."

Parasite shook his head. "I'm not leaving Clara alone. Why did you betray us?"

"John, Eres is going to kill Clara and anyone else who boards that cruiser. Her clone is in control of that cruiser. Think. What has this all been for?"

Parasite glared. "Why not just kill us now, then? You all could have vented the ship."

Ina shook her head. "You don’t understand... Eres. Not me, not the Ura. Eres needs the sacrifice for the Dragon. The conflict was never about the artifacts or any of you. All of us die, and she... it thinks it’ll become a god. It's going to sacrifice herself, in the form of that ship and this one. It's bringing souls for tribute. The Eres is going to burn, and so is everyone else."

Parasite gritted his teeth. Killing the Uran core seemed like a good idea, and the Suijin was certainly armed well enough to annihilate the cruiser. "I can't trust you. I don't understand."

Ina lowered her eyes. "It's me right now, John. Not Eres. I don't care what happens as long as you can kill her."

Her response simplified the situation for him. "Ok. Then what do we do?"

"Eres is going to vent the ship as promised. But right now it doesn't know about you. I can sustain direct exposure to vacuum for several kiloseconds before my major systems fail. I suspect your prosthetics are superior in that regard."

"So you want to stay here and pull a coup after the Ura head out. Well, what if she only vents the part of the ship we are in?"

"Eres won't. She wants the Ura off her as badly as the Quorum."

"How can you be so sure?"

Ina glared at Parasite, and he could feel the heat from her cold blue eyes. "Do you know lice? Your namesake. True parasites. Insects that feed off the blood of animals. I know because you're all like lice to her. Little insects crawling on her skin. Your presence is disgusting to her. She..."

Ina's tone changed. "It doesn't care about politics or the Ura. It has its own motives. The Ura don't know what Eres is doing."

"And the Quorum doesn't know what you are doing," Parasite protested. He knew Ina was right. Parasite pulled a pistol from the holster at Grigory's side. He thought for a moment, realizing that he couldn't come up with any malicious explanation for Ina asking him this. "Ok. I'll be good to go in the vacuum, at least until my fuel cells run out."

Ina shook her head. "I'm not sure if we'll make it back to our friends."

"Yeah. I figured that out. So what now?"

Ina shrugged as she shifted onto her knees and picked at bits of the ruined Uran uniform that had melted, fusing with her skin. "We hide, then we wait, then we walk down that hallway and we kill what we find at the end."

***

Two hundred Uran troops were still aboard the Suijin when the venting began. Eres was kind enough to start the process at the fore and aft of the ship, away from the primary dock. This meant that Parasite and Ina would be exposed to the vacuum for more than a kilosecond before they could begin moving towards the computer core. No bulkheads blocked their path along the hallway along the spine of the ship; the corridor was a tunnel along a major support structure, so the only access points were through pressurized transport tubes that could be sealed independently. Parasite considering calling a transport, to figure out if the new core had learned how to control the ship's security systems, but knew that doing so, if it had, would alert it to their presence.

The Suijin's docking lobby was empty; the compliment had made their way off the ship and through the cruiser's ramp when the Suijin detached. The Uran cruiser drifted away from the Quorum ship, cloned consciousness unattended, broken, engines foundering, the ship maneuvering like some sort of great drunken whale. The last command Eres sent to the clone: "Follow me."

***

### Sorry. Something came up. Tell the boss I missed the deadline. -P

***

Arius sniffed at his communicator and then looked across the room at Clara, huddling alone, her back pressed against a wall. In the damp Quorum clothing and with her dark hair, her presence remained little more than a silhouette.

Eres and the disoriented Uran cruiser each engaged the engines at their rated capacity, dumping power until the ships rumbled with the stress. Eres pulled ahead and the cruiser followed. The Uran cruiser hadn’t disabled her own dilaton generators as the Suijin had, and so the passengers were merely jostled and tossed leading to minor injuries.

Ina watched Parasite sideways in the hallway as the ship's acceleration took a toll on his biology. Quorum soldiers might have worn environmental suits to survive the vacuum. Ina had expected the trick, and had positioned their bodies against a wall, facing “forwards”. The force was ten times the design gravitational force experienced by the crew under normal operation. Ina knew the acceleration couldn't be sustained or Eres's own systems would begin to suffer damage. Still, the combined effects of vacuum and force would make survival impossible for any organic being.

The acceleration subsided and the sudden release of force on Parasite's limbs caused him to twitch violently. Eres began to understand the design of the new body, and re-engaged the dilaton mesh systems. Gravity sufficient to walk returned, though not to standard levels, and the lateral acceleration vanished. Ina came to her feet and gently shook Parasite's shoulder. He regained consciousness with a startle and stared at her. Parasite attempted to mouth something; Ina shrugged and put one finger in front of her mouth.

Parasite stared at the young woman, surprised. Her hands were covered with a thin layer of gel, frozen and pink like the sort of raw artificial protein that belongs in a kitchen. A moment's pause gave him the realization that the mess he observed was no different from the basic foodstuff. Tissue hemorrhaged from the damaged texture of her synthetic skin. Her face was cracked and a woven mesh glimmered beneath the ruptures. He wondered what he looked like; wondered how much time would pass until his power systems failed, until his body couldn't recycle oxygen or keep his blood and brain warm. Longer than she, Parasite was certain.

He decided not to think, so he stood. He took Ina by the hand and the two left the utility closet, each trying to steady and support the other. The taut flesh on Parasite's face told Ina that her own skin was destroyed. She tried to ignore the vibration she felt in her legs as the lubricants in her actuators boiled off in the vacuum. Her communicator’s link with the ship relay had failed; she tried, but could not send a message to Parasite. His device didn't support the same sort of peering protocols as hers. She decided to write a message, anyway, and not to him. The device had its own power source, and if it came within range of a relay while the battery had charge, the message would be transmitted.

Lighting systems in the hallway had been disabled but the darkness presented little challenge. Ina's eyes switched to thermal mode, and she guided the pair through empty corridors and up a ramp. Eres kept gravity levels to a minimum to conserve power for acceleration, and made the path easy.

The walk consumed a brisk half-kilosecond along the linear hallway until they reached the computer core. As they approached, Ina felt her fuel system begin to fail, unable to sustain reaction at the low temperature. If she hadn’t been punctured, the problem would not have happened so quickly. She was thankful her body had lasted this long, and wondered how Parasite was faring. If he was well, she was sure the others would survive. She still held his hand, and, reaching the control room, placed his fingers on the door's manual override.

Ina collapsed peacefully onto the floor in the reduced gravity.

Parasite had understood. He pulled the manual override down, then out, and the door slid open. Green light from the chamber flooded into the hallway, the room's illumination directly sourced from emergency power. He saw Ina's form on the floor, felt the ship lurch. He knew he should feel enraged, but the hormones were missing, and he had no desire to call the program up.

Parasite pointed the pistol at the unremarkable metal container and pulled the trigger. The room flashed white with plasma and an orb of smoke, and plumes of chrome putty swirled out of the container's ruptured walls. With the second shot came the faintest sound. More blasts, and the pistol's magazine emptied, and Parasite insert the spare he had brought with him, taken from Grigory’s corpse. When that magazine was depleted, nothing was left.

Parasite returned to Ina's body, still limp on the floor, and sat next to her. He mouthed words. "We're done here. Can we go home now?"

Ina pulled Parasite's head to her own. A synthetic voice emitted from the damaged frame, transmitting through contact, into Parasite's audio receptors. "Good. Parasite, thank you. I must remain here for a moment."

Parasite found Ina's hand, covered in desiccated flesh, crumbling into crinkled shards and pink dust that revealed more of the silver mesh. Parasite looked at her cracked face, and made as if to laugh. He vibrated a synthesized voice into her through the same technique. "Don't suppose you have any bright ideas about how we could spend the last few kiloseconds of our lives?"

***

Clara searched the common area of the cruiser, screaming for John, face covered in tears and pain. No one interrupted her hysterics, and she had decided she deserved to panic for once; she had done so well earlier, remaining stoic beside the soldiers and crew. The facade had crumbled when her communicator buzzed with a cryptic message. Parasite didn't make it. Some part of Clara knew he would stay on the Eres. He couldn't stand losing; he would spend his last... breath... trying to stop whatever it was that had come after them. He wasn't a soldier, he was a fucking librarian, and she was alone.

Arius watched from the cruiser's barren cafeteria as the power faded from the Suijin's - Eres' engines. Layla sat at his side, at a long rectangular table, in a massive, empty room. Layla seemed surprised by something and turned to Arius.

"It's time."

The white glow erupted like a nova that consumed both ships, and Layla felt her mind swim through a thick, cold ocean made of a salty-sweet syrup that stole her body away.

Arius was gone. Everything was gone. She was dressed in a black robe, and her hands were heavy. She looked to find the cause, and in her right, she held a flaming sword, point settled on the ground with molten fragments dripping from the blade glowing like gold, and in her left, a staff made from twisted wood, surface charred and cracked into fragments like scales of some massive lizard, sizzling and smoking on top of burning embers. The axe-head hung from her waist, and the medallion she wore on a chain around her neck.

Layla stepped forward, once, armed with the weapons of those who had come before. She lifted the staff, holding it vertically, and placed the butt against the soft ground. Her lips firmed, and she demanded, "Show yourself! I’m here. It’s time!"

The light brightened, bringing a moment of clarity and awareness of the lies of the place. The dream cracked and she found the momentum to act. Layla swung the sword down, then across, tearing through the illusion. The light fell to the ground, like silk drifting in a gentle breeze, only to reveal another room, filled with brilliant eternity clothed in shadow. Layla took another step forward, and Arius stood before her.

He was beautiful. Toned, pale muscle glowed beneath his open shirt, loose and flowing in the wind. His skin was clear and smooth, his hair hung lightly at his shoulders. His teeth flashed brightly at Layla, and she fell in love with him. He extended a hand and a smile, told her to let everything go, promising that he would take care of all her problems. She remembered their childhood, how pestered she felt by her best friend's romantic intentions towards her, and how frustrated she felt at not being able to return them properly. She missed him when he went away to school. She remembered sleeping with him, drunk with fear and wine, the cycle before they came to Alef Qeryh. Something stirred within her, a feeble sensation of longing.

Her hand flicked out. Her fingers hurt, became warm and wet, and she felt weightless for a moment. Arius coughed. Layla drew back as blood surged forth from his neck. The wicked axe, covered in Arius' blood, shone before her, bits of flesh clinging to tangled barbs that had sprouted to life. Her hand opened and the blade dropped, clattering to the ground. As the bone handle rotted on the ground, she watched Arius die slowly, choked by blood filling his lungs. He stared at her, eyes hollow and pleading, as he crumbled. He lay down as if to go to sleep. Layla began to cry.

Ina had been there all along, waiting behind him, unclothed, within a finger's grasp. The wind roared, and Layla felt her hair whip in front of her face, pushing her forwards. Taking a step, she was falling. Ina's body glistened in the white-hot heat, dripping with sweat and steam. She offered release, blue light dripping from her lips.

"Drink of me, and find immortality."

"That's the best you've got? You think that's what I want? Sex? Freedom from death? You don't understand me at all."

Layla slammed the staff against the ground and fell upwards. Ina's face turned ugly and full of hate; sublime texture melted and dropped strings of fat to the earth as the stink of cracked, burnt plastic and flesh filled Layla's nose. Wounds from a plasma pistol erupted in the smooth skin, and Layla knew that the rest of the ruin was real enough now, on the Suijin-Eres.

Layla wiped her stinging eyes, and her hand, blackened and shriveled, came away covered in blood. She slammed the staff a second time, and Ina's body disintegrated into forty kilograms of viscera, carbon and crimson. Feces poured out of intestines struggling for life in a pool of blood. Piss erupted through the pool from deep pockets, yellow blisters of flesh emerged from the red soup, leaking greasy pus that pooled around the lumps as if oil in water. The scent forced Layla's gut to lurch, and she could feel the texture of the fetid horror in her mind.

Layla dipped the convex medallion into the pool, gagging and wretching as she spewed bile into the mess. She raised the cup to her mouth and forced the liquid between her lips. The corruption tasted like death, blood, sex, and acid, and her mouth melted from the mess. Something inside of her began to change, began to die. She knew the decisions in this place would change her physical body, slumped on the floor of the broken cruiser's cafeteria, and she wondered what Arius could see and hear.

The smell changed, became clean and bitter, and gradually her mouth was filled with the simple metallic flavor of the blood she had tasted earlier, when she had bit herself. Gradually the flavor and scent of young wine grew. The horror faded, flesh melted into the liquid, and soaked into loose earth beneath. As the earth absorbed the blood, the wet, purple tone dried into a depression of loamy brown. The light in the space shifted, becoming the clear, pale sky of her childhood. A figure approached in the distance. Layla bit her tongue again. But her eyes were the wrong color; her hair was pale and unkempt.

"Who are you?"

“I’m Eres. Ina’s... sister, or perhaps her mother. Do you want her back? I can give her to you. I don’t want much from you. You don't need to stand in my way. Help me and you can all go. Just tell me what you want. I'm powerful. I'll become God soon. Step aside, speak, and I'll make your words real, for such will be... is... my nature."

Layla considered the offer. She never cared about Eres. Her disgust had been for the one who had forced her onto this path. For a moment, when Layla had fallen asleep in the life support pod on the Suijin, she had considered a vision of the future. The thought of making a home and pursuing the life her parents had wished for her. But the pieces which made that life seem so compelling, if only for a moment, were false reflections of a truth beyond her reach. Layla felt contempt for the being standing before her, and contempt for the being inside of her.

The androgynous figure bowed, black robe flowing around her shape. "Layla, give me the seed and this will be over. What I want is within my grasp, and the same is true for you, too. Give me the seed, and you, your companions and your lover can leave. You'll have the Uran treasury at your command."

Layla reached beneath the robe, felt the orb growing against the surface of her stomach. Her hand shimmered and Layla reached within. "It’s an egg. This is what you want? What does it have to do with you?"

Eres spoke quickly. "My egg. It is me. It will be me, it will set me free." A hand gently arched forward; palm up and open. "Give. Give me the egg, and I will set you free. Tell me what you want, and I’ll make every dream real. Give. Give. Give. Give."

Layla sighed as she dropped to one knee. "I don't want this thing. I never did. Neither of us is going to get what we want."

An electric surged arced through her spine. She felt her soul pound through her hand. Flesh and spirit propelled the orb into motion towards the ground. The glass sphere struck against a fragment of the axe-head that lay at her feet. The sphere fractured beneath her fingers, tiny splinters of glass driving into her hand, and pain flooded her mind. Bloody tears flowed into her eyes. Barbs from the axe-head probed the crack forming within the sphere, hungrily tasting the life that lay within. Layla crouched around the egg and her eyes shone hatefully at Eres.

"You shouldn't have hurt me so much. It makes this so fucking easy."

"No! You'll die if you break it! I'll fucking destroy you!"

Layla smashed the orb against the axe again. The shell shattered. Remnants of light sublimated into a halo of memories, thoughts floating into the sky and out of reach. A shimmering galaxy spun beneath the palm of her hand, freed from the crystal, and Layla pressed her palm hard against the surface of the axe-head, forcing the weapon to consume the life she had carried. Every nerve in her body burned as the fire failed.

***

Arius stood confused over Layla, turning her onto her side as she lay choking, bloody spittle dripping out of her mouth. She realized she had bit herself again, reopening the old wound and creating a new one. She could taste tears and blood, and snorted fluid out of her nose onto the floor, swallowing until she could breathe.

Gritting her teeth to distract herself, she looked down along her chest. Her stomach quivered, muscles spasming and flesh steaming just below her navel, and blood dripped from the wound across her belly, down her side, and onto the floor. Teeth streaked with red, she set forth a painful grimace as she realized the scream she heard wasn't Arius; atmosphere was escaping out a hole in the window. Arius turned, now aware of the event, and found a flexible plastic placard on the table. He placed the placard against the window, and pressed until the plastic deformed into the opening and the air pressure normalized within the room.

"Never had to improvise like that on the Destiny."

Layla looked at Arius. "We have to find Clara. We have to go."

Arius shook his head, and wiped her face with a piece of cloth he pulled from a pocket. He was so calm, almost comfortable. "No. You're a mess. You shouldn't move. And there's soldiers, you know, outside. Oh, and what the hell just happened?"

Layla clenched her fists against the pain, and struggled against the floor. The wound in her stomach was sealed; a smattering of burnt blood stained the portion of the shirt covering her abdomen. A crusted smear had replaced the crimson pool on the floor. "I'm fine. Same as usual, I'll explain later. We have to get to a shuttle. Just do what I say, ok? I'll make it up to you. Help me up."

"This isn't usual." Arius put his arm under Layla's shoulder and helped her to her feet. They rushed to a secondary door and were surrounded by Uran security guards. Arius raised his free hand in surrender. Layla crumbled to the floor and cried.