The landing is a little smoother than the last time. The thin atmosphere still creates a lot of wind resistance, but maybe Sparrow has a better a better handle on it. Or maybe I'm more used to the turbulence. Sparrow manages to bleed our velocity away, and I see the transponder on our approach. "Alright, we're coming in. About ten seconds, and I'm cutting comms. Ten, nine, eight, sev-" she squeaks nervously before all the comm channels drop.

  The nav display isn't set up to show granular detail, so I can't help looking out the viewport at the dark icy terrain whipping by. I brace myself as the engine kicks hard, the burn pressing me against the chair. I hope Brent's strapped in tight in the engine room. My fingers dig into the armrests, knuckles white as the Chimera kicks and shudders. It's still not a graceful landing, but at least there's more room with Rabi's shuttle gone. The Chimera's engine screams as we slow, and there's a mild jolt and soft squeaking of metal and ceramic. The shuttle rocks on the landing pad, the automated bay shutter sliding closed above us.

  Sparrow sighs with relief, but I've already snapped my belts off and leaped to my feet. "We're down! Brent, suit up ASAP!" I call out, hearing him stomping from the engine room. I don't wait, I pop the hatch to the cargo bay, and I'm sliding down the ladder before either of them can respond.

  Sparrow stands as well, opening her mouth, but Brent barrels by. "Make a hole," he calls out, jumping in the low gravity, grabbing the hatch and spinning as he drops through the ladder with a grin.

  "Good luck," Sparrow squeaks nervously, closing the hatch behind him, while I tear at the packing for the folded and sealed void suits. I check all of my nodes; they're shut down and locked down. I feel oddly blind without access to my overlay, and strangely naked with no access to the exonet. It's eerie, unsettling, but I'll take being disconnected over being eaten by Communion.

  Brent takes the fist-sized canister of tritium and slides it into the reactor, making the panel and readout on the side light up. My heart is pounding as I pull my legs into the suit, glancing back at the reactor. Or bomb, rather. As the Sergeant begins to pull his own void suit on, I see the power readout begin to display data. "So to start it-"

  "Big yellow button on the control pad," Brent says, waving it. "Nice and easy, it'll start the reactor going. It's wired to pour all of the energy back into the plasma-stream. All of the safeties have been locked out and overridden, and the overload is just a matter of time," he says, taking his own helmet from the floor.

  I give him a grin back as we suit up. We're in sync, and the end is in sight. Even this ill-fitting suit barely ruffles me. It's like dressing in an extremely bulky costume, but at least the reduced gravity helps. "We don't need to be fancy, Sarge. Just get the reactor clear of the Chimera's engine wash. Hit the button, back to the bay, close the door, back up the ladder," I say, and he nods.

  There's not much else to say. It takes a minute to finish sealing the suit and clasping my helmet on, and the Sergeant is right behind me. We check each other's seals and oxygen bottles before I hit the exterior door control. My belly is tight, my shoulders tense, as the cargo bay door opens to the same frozen landing pad. Without air or comms, we can't speak, but Brent motions at one side of the reactor, as if to say, 'I got this side'. I hurry to grab the other.

  I lift, groaning. The reactor weighs almost a ton, but in thirteen percent gravity with two very motivated people? We shimmy that bulky die-shaped bomb out in the cold with a minimum amount of grunting and cursing and vain calls from me to him to lift with his damn knees. A slow crabwalk brings us close to the north wall. We lower the reactor with a dull clang to the floor, clear of the Chimera’s tail. I don't hang around; when it finally crunches on the deck, I'm flying back inside the bay as fast as I can bounce. "Sarge, get your ass back here yesterday!" I shout, though he can't hear me.

  Brent slaps the yellow button. I don't hear any sound, but I see a light blink on the side of the metal mass and a red warning sign flash repeatedly. Normally a terrifying thing to see on the side of a fusion reactor, but my heart leaps with joy at the alarm. My heart is hammering, watching him trot back to the Chimera. Brent gives me a stiff thumbs-up as he crosses the threshold, and I slam the control. Finally, the cargo door slides shut, and hope blooms in my chest. For once, things haven't gone horrifically off the rails!

  The bay begins to pressurize, and I tap my foot impatiently. As soon as the control panel lights green, I pop my helmet off, waiting for the gas mix to equalize before we climb aboard the shuttle. My legs are shaking. I half expected twenty angry drilling mechs to rampage through the walls, but it seems that's not going to happen.

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  I smile at Brent, giving a laugh, and he sheds his own helmet, chuckling back. “So, El Tee, aside from Rabi, think this is the last bit of Communion?”

  I shake my head. “I hope so. But for all I know, a piece might be hanging on somewhere. So, after this, I’m going to crawl over every inch of Ursa Miner station, find every piece of computational substrate, and inject enough sanitizing software into it that any seeds of Communion will vomit bubbles,” I say, feeling my breathing grow steady.

  Brent chuckles, but a shudder runs through him. The Sergeant cocks his head and gives me a smile. “Did you know only Synwave cranial implants allow direct integration of the nervous tissue into the processing substrate?”

  I blink at that. “What? I don’t have any Synwav augments-”

  He grins widely, but it’s wrong. Terribly wrong. “Upgrade with a Synwave series X-300 or higher and experience a new level of digital immersion, with only a 20% downpayment.” An icy shock runs through me, and I jerk back from him. Before I can speak, the Sergeant’s hand darts out and grips my collar. My throat constricts; I can feel Alex’s fingers around my neck again. “Act now, and pay zero interest for the first 90 days.”

  Brent pulls me forward and slams his forehead into my face. Bone crunches loudly, pain flaring in my nose, but he shoves me backwards before I can do more than gasp. My head bounces off the bulkhead with a loud thud, my vision going white as I feel blood spurt down my lips and chin. I can taste iron as his knee hits me in the gut and I double over.

  I still haven’t caught a breath as I stumble over the helmet beside me, taking a wild swing that misses Brent by half a meter. “Considering a vacation, but can’t afford to charter a ship?” The Sergeant’s return hook catches my jaw in an explosion of pain and spins me half around, before a kick to my lower back sends me sprawling. “Purchase LightSpeed Shares today and receive fractional ownership of a licensed interplanetary vessel.”

  He’s going to kill me. It’s just like Alex.

  I pull one knee up to block the next kick, my thigh shivering as his boot impacts hard. Pushing off the bulkhead, I roll to my knees. My head comes up just in time to catch an uppercut to the chin, my teeth slamming together with a crack. My elbows come up and block a kick to the side that makes me scream, the impact to my broken rub bringing tears to my eyes.

  “Flashpoint Energy; proudly serving the Jovian system for twenty years.” The manic grin seems etched on Brent’s face. His cross-shaped eyes are wildly dilated, and the muscles strain around his shoulders. I duck the next swing and rush low to hit his hip with my shoulder. I drive forward, slamming him into the wall.

  His eyes are panicked and confused. But his body sure isn’t. His knee drives up into my stomach again, making me retch. It’s like he doesn’t feel the pain. Maybe he doesn’t. “Artisanal grains provide many proven health benefits.” I kick him hard in the groin, but he barely shudders. “Don’t trust your life to gene-modded products. Buy Cornucopia certified grain for your station; your health is worth the price.”

  I slam a fist into his side and follow it with another kick to the groin. The blocky Sergeant spasms, but his right hand lashes out to grab my wrist. The other catches my neck. NO! No, nonononono….

  I flail and thrash, kicking wildly at his legs now, my other hand striking fast and hard him in the cheek, the neck, the side. Brent shivers with each blow, but his grip tightens like a vice, the calloused fingers cutting off my air. I croak as my vision narrows. All I can see are cross shaped pupils as he stares into my eyes with a manic grin. The blood pounds in my ears, but it can’t drown him out. “Have you considered the financial benefits of buying refurbished organs? At Synergy Synthetics, our prices are-“

  The cargo bay flares blue-white, a flash of heat rolling over me and singing the hair on my arms, and then I’m on the floor, gasping and pulling down lungful's of recycled air. The smell of discharged plasma and seared flesh mingles with the scent of my blood, filling the room. Tears spill down my cheeks, mixing with the bloody saliva pouring down my face as I cough and sputter, sucking in oxygen and exhaling terror.

  I can feel arms around me, pulling me in. “Mel, it’s ok! I’m here, it’s Sparrow.” She drops the plasma rifle and falls to her knees, wrapping her arms around me. I take a deep breath and break into ragged weeping. Brent lays on the floor unmoving, the smell of ozone and scorched meat assaulting me. “It’s ok, it’s over, it can’t hurt you,” she says, hugging me tightly to her small frame. More tears roll down my cheeks.

  “It’s… it’s not…” I pant, before sobbing heavily again, throat aching. “It’s… it’s Communion…” I manage. “It… got inside his augments. It ate him,” I gasp, clinging to her. It knew. Did it sense us? Me? The moment we got in range... Communion took him, none of his defenses, none of our precautions... Nothing keeps it out.

  “I’m so sorry, Melody.” Sparrow’s hand rubs my back, and she hugs me tighter, pulling my face to her chest. “It’s not your fault…” she whispers, her shoulders shaking as she cries with me. “We’ll stop it. We'll kill it.”

  I want to tell her it’s futile. We can’t stop it. It’s smarter than us. It’s hungry, and it’s determined to save us all and make us part of it. Even if we kill it here, there's more out there. Rabi has it and she's tinkering and modding her little experiment. And all it takes is the wrong telescope to download that fucking signal again. It's cancer, and it's going to bloom and spread and nothing can keep it out. Who am I kidding? How can we fight this thing? I want to tell her to flee. To run, to get away from this station. To fly out to the Kuiper and never come back. To throw her implant away and leave this all behind, before she dies. Or worse.

  I turn my head and see Brent’s cross-shaped pupils. His hollow, vacant eyes staring blankly back at me. The grin etched on his face. “Yeah. We will.”