Nalen Kress wasn't hard to follow. Even with his headstart, the man was screaming as he ran, crashing into walls. Before long, Pirra found blood splattered on a corner he'd hit, and from then on it had been even simpler.

Still, she did not let her guard down. Already she'd had a gun disappear from her hands, and she couldn't rule out that Kress couldn't do something similar.

The image and words of the man he'd shot dead wouldn't get out of her mind. Even now it felt like his words were still whispering in her ear.

I will be reborn.

Did he mean that when the bizarre cycle this station was stuck in reset, he'd be alive again?

She couldn't possibly know, didn't understand any of this or possibly predict it, but his words felt more ominous even than that.

He'd known things, and she felt vulnerable in her ignorance.

As she moved swiftly after Kress, she began to hear him running. His pace had fallen as exhaustion and his injuries caught up with him.

She could hear him around the bend. They were back near the airlocks, where the gunman had shot at her, where she'd seen the three men kill themselves.

She stepped out, aiming.

"Step away from the panel!" she said.

He was at the control panel for the airlock, and looked up at her, sweat running down his forehead. Panic and exhaustion competed with each other on his face, but he then smiled, a bitterwseet, hateful smile.

"You're too late," he said. "I didn't need much time. This place will be destroyed, and I'll be freed."

"That's not true. My compatriot is undoing what you've done. And when our ship comes, you can leave, too," she told him. "If you'll just stop and listen to me, there wouldn't have been a need for any violence at all."

"He's a fool if he tries to stop it. But next time - next time it won't matter. I've been practicing and getting better at this. Even if I come back, even if it starts over, next time I'll succeed in destroying this place."

He punched another button on the airlock.

She aimed above his head and fired. The shot hit the bulkhead above him, making sparks rain down as the bullet disintegrated.

"I said no more," she said. "I will shoot you if I have to."

"Go ahead," he said. And then he hit one last button.

The airlock doors opened - on both sides.

Air howled out, and Pirra was pulled forward, crashing to the deck and sliding towards the door.

She looked up in time to see Nalen Kress close his eyes and let go, being taken out the airlock.

Emergency doors began to slam shut, sensing the vacuum.

And one of them was above her.

If she let go, she'd be trapped on the airless side, but if she held on she'd be cut in half.

Digging her fingers into the grating, she pulled with all her strength, curling her legs-

The door slammed shut, and she shivered, waiting for the pain.

But it didn't come.

Slowly, she opened her eyes and looked.

Her feet were inches from the closed door, and even her wing drapes were mostly safe. A bottom edge of one was caught in the door, and she cursed, grabbing clumsily for the knife she'd taken earlier.

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There was no choice but to cut off some of her feathers. As long as she did it carefully, it wouldn't hurt.

It'd be ugly - hideous, even.

But better that than to be dead.

Standing up, she moved to a monitor and activated the external cameras.

Nalen Kress was a speck now, drifting out into the void.

Pirra couldn't condone what he had done, but she hoped that the man had at least some measure of peace now.

*******

"Observation platform, this is Response Team. Was that a body that just went out the airlock? Are you there?"

Power had come back to the station minutes before, and Bascet had halted their ship at a safe distance. Even with power back, the signatures had been wrong, unstable.

For awhile, it seemed like the station was going to rip itself apart.

"We're here!" he suddenly heard. It was Tred. "We're alive, we're okay!"

"Report status. What happened, Ensign?" Bascet demanded.

"Um, well. A lot of stuff? But we've got it under control. Er, but that body float by, that's . . . that's part of the problem that was solved."

"A body? Who is it? Where's Lt. Pirra?!" Bascet demanded.

"I'm here," Pirra's voice came on. "It's a long story, sergeant. We had intruders . . . of a sort. But where is Lt. Commander Caraval?"

"He's been . . . relieved of duty, Lt. I'm acting-commander. Is the situation safe to dock?"

Pirra was quiet a long moment. "Docking bay is working. You can connect any time."

Bascet felt like something was wrong, but he didn't know what else to do.

"Begin docking procedure," he ordered.

*******

Pirra had been worried about what was going on with the team, but after conferring with Bascet, she understood. It was horrible to think of Caraval being affected like that, and she'd spoken to him briefly, but he seemed all right.

Still. That wouldn't be enough to let him take back command, not without a more thorough check-up.

It meant it was all on her.

It took Bascet a little while longer to understand what had occurred on the station, and she knew he was still nervous about her and Tred.

That she could not even really explain what had happened didn't help. But ultimately, the man had accepted her taking command. And the first thing she'd done was order their evacuation.

"It's unsafe to be on here," she ordered. "We're leaving immediately, we'll operate the zerogate and comms remotely."

"Er . . . all right," Bascet said. She could tell he was worried he'd made the wrong decision handing power over to her.

She was the last off, letting the rest of the team get on - including Tred - before her.

Before she boarded, she took just a moment to glance back.

She'd felt no tremors, felt nothing from the station, for awhile now. Were they still skimming through time? Through dimensions?

As was usual with this sort of thing, she had no idea. There was not a neat ending for her.

She turned and boarded, wondering what she might be leaving behind.

Once they detached and drifted the ship away, she felt a little better.

"Activate the remote comms and connect me to the Craton," she ordered. "And prepare immediately for a zerojump out of here as soon as we can."

"Yes, ma'am," Bascet said. That she was getting them out of Terris seemed to strengthen his belief in her.

While the communications were set up, she looked to Tred.

"Are you all right?" she asked him.

"Huh? Oh . . . uh, yeah," he replied. "I didn't get hurt. Well, some bruises, but that's all . . ."

She nodded, and put her hand on his shoulder. "You did well, Tred. You came through when we needed it."

The man's face went into an expression she could not even decipher.

"Th-thank you, Lieutenant. You, um, you did good, too."

"Connection to Captain Brooks coming through," Bascet told her.

"Captain, this is Lt. Pirra, acting-commander of the mission," she said.

This wasn't a real-time transmission, and so she'd just have to tell him and then wait half an hour for a response. Communications were fast, but still not instant unless one wanted to use more power than the station could even produce.

"We've run into difficulties, but the mission has been completed. Lt. Commander Caraval located the Sunspot and we are including all relevant, safe data. Potentially unsafe data will have to wait until our return."

She hesitated. "In the process, Caraval was potentially contaminated by a memetic infection. Please have medical resources standing by.

"Here on the station, we encountered our own problems . . ."