“What the hell is going on in there?” Brooks demanded.

“Team One is not responding,” Kai called again. “We’ve got mic control and they’re on, but we’re receiving nothing!”

“Keep calling!” Brooks ordered, feeling fear roiling inside. “Do we have biometrics?”

“Yes, Captain,” Y said, his voice running far faster than normal, almost frenetic. “But their readings are impossible – their hearts are racing and yet brain activity has dropped to incredibly low levels. I believe they are conscious, but . . . I do not understand why they are unable to say anything.”

“An exotic chemical paralysis?” Cenz suggested with as much urgency as Y. “But no, there are no other signals that suggest it . . .”

“Teams Two, Three, and Four are all responding,” Eboh said. “They are reporting that they are fine, and that the pirates are no longer fighting.”

“Surrendering?” Brooks asked.

“No, sir. They are doing nothing – the way they are describing it it sounds like they have gone into vegetative states.”

Brooks stood, pointing sharply. “Order all teams to converge on Team One’s position,” he said. “I want them to extract Team One, Nor, and Urle, and get them the hell off that ship!”

He turned to Jaya. “Prepare a full barrage – coilguns, missiles, everything. As soon as we have all friendlies off that ship, I want it destroyed.”

He looked back to the pirate ship on the screen. “I don’t care how valuable that relic technology is. I am not going to let it take my people.”

He had seen the displeasure on Jaya’s face at his command. But she did not argue with him.

Good, he thought. Now was not the time for that.

“Find Ambassador Kell,” he said. “Tell him I urgently need to speak with him.”

Cenz hesitated. “He is not in his room, Captain.”

“Then where is he?” Brooks demanded.

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Pirra’s heart thudded in her chest like a hummingbird, the helplessness she felt almost overpowering.

She’d never been this helpless in her life. Her body would not obey her commands, she could almost feel the clutches of the unseen force upon her body, paralyzing her almost completely.

She knew that its attention was barely on her and she could do nothing. It could stop her heart if it wanted, with barely a thought.

Her head was tilted downward, staring at the floor. Whatever was going on above she could not see, she could only see the boots of Apollonia Nor, now covered in the blood that had splattered everywhere.

Even her suit cameras were non-functioning, just repeating error after error.

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Skies, she should have called off this mission as soon as they saw the fucking floating blood. What had she been thinking to press on?

She hadn’t, she knew on some level. She’d been drawn in, like the others. A moth to a flame.

It didn’t help to dwell on that. What did she have control over? Her suit was useless, but she could breathe, she could blink, albiet with some difficulty. She looked around, trying to see if she could make eye contact with anyone else nearby, they had a blink-code that could impart a little information . . .

But no one was within her vision.

Her hands began to move, shocking her. She still held her rifle, and she shifted it, pointing it upwards.

Bringing the barrel in line with her head.

“Oh shit,” she breathed.

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“I don’t want to know anything you have to tell me,” Apollonia said.

Or attempted; her mouth and throat could barely move. But she knew the Source could understand her.

Her head was swimming, her body screamed in pain, her muscles tensing, struggling to take breath through lungs that did not want to obey her.

I offer. And I take, the voice hissed.

She heard guttural cries, the radios suddenly working by its will.

It was the Response team. They were yelling, screaming.

She did not have to see them to know what was going on. Their words were clear.

“I can’t stop it!” one man yelled.

“Do not fire!” Pirra roared. “Do not pull those goddamn triggers!”

“I can’t control my hands,” Kiseleva’s voice came through, a strained grunt. “Bliat, I’m not going to fucking shoot myself damn it . . .”

“Hold your fire, that is a fucking order!” Pirra screamed.

But Apollonia knew that they could not help it. The Source demanded; and it was so. They would turn their own weapons on themselves and they would die. Their blood would feed it.

“No!” she heard the clipped yell.

And then the clicks of triggers.

But no shots rang out.

“Locked out!” Kiseleva cried. “Who did it?”

A bright flash streaked by Apollonia, a dozen tracer rounds that ripped into the alien carcass, and she felt its hold slacken for an instant as its attention was diverted. She fell back, her body still stiff, muscles roaring with pain. Hitting the floor hard, she nonetheless turned her head, trying to see who had fired.

Urle was beyond the team, on all fours. He was crawling forward slowly, doggedly. He could not rise, but the mechanical weapons on his back were aimed on the Source, firing another burst of rounds into it.

Blood ran from the edges of his prosthetics, the machine battling the flesh that had fallen sway to the control. Even the mechanical parts struggled, sparking and shaking, fighting off an alien hold that they could not comprehend.

“You . . . will not take . . . my people!” Urle yelled.

His weapons fired again, him bracing against the ground, and Apollonia could only stare at what it cost him. His entire body was shaking, and despite his fire . . .

The Source stood unharmed.

The holes from the bullets seemed to have no effect on it, and it gazed at him only a moment longer.

Urle groaned, its full attention too much even for how much he was willing to fight. He sagged, his weapons fell, and then he too crumpled to the floor.

The ancient Priest Lord looked back to her.

She felt herself pulled like a puppet back upright, her feet dragging against the decking as she came closer to the thing. Its feeble arms reached out, opening widely to welcome her.

And she realized she had a jagged piece of metal in her hands.

For a moment she thought to stab it, but even as the thought came to her she found that she did not lift it against the cursed thing – but against her own neck.

Her helmet crashed to the floor, even though she did not remember taking it off, and the jagged metal pressed against her now-exposed jugular.

With your blood, I shall be whole, it said. Mania filled its voice, and the terrifying thought came through her mind that for all its power, all its ancient knowledge . . .

It was mad.

She did not think her blood would restore it. She did not know if anything could.

But it thought that it would. And it would drain her of every drop of life in the effort.

And beyond her, the crew of the Craton. And once it dominated even the mind of Captain Brooks, it would travel and seek other lives.

It would never stop. Never be sated. It would always be able to reach out into the dreams of men and women to find those who would be tempted, and where it could not persuade it would force.

Until it turned the stars red with blood.

The metal bit into her neck. She felt it ready to cut.

It was closer now, without even moving it seemed to dominate all of her vision.

There was nothing she could do.