Gunny had never seen a living fish or a natural body of water. In fact, he’d never seen a single natural thing except the stars themselves. Gunny had been hatched on a ship, he would die on a whale, and his feet would never touch the ground.

Why did that bother him now, when it never had before? It had to be something about the ritual of fishing. Baiting the line, casting it, waiting for a bite. Some embedded ancestral memory told Gunny the whole platoon should be drinking grog and relaxing beneath a brilliant blue sky instead of a vast cylindrical mirror. They should all be shooting the jit instead of the monster that killed Sticky.

But they were T.A.R.D.S., not Terrans. Their fishing rod was Yakov’s extendable ladder, their line was Winchy’s cable, and their bait was Choppa.

Triple Trouble held up the extendable ladder, jiggling it so that Choppa’s limp legs drummed against the skin that had hardened over the lake of gunk. No one objected to using Choppa as bait. He would have loved this.

The rest of the platoon was lined up along the edge of the walkway in a firing squad. Bonzo stood with his dual Compensators ready, his eyes were dark and intent. Yancy aimed his shredder beneath Choppa’s feet. Gunny held Bennie, beautiful Bennie, eager to burn.

“Wish’t Sambone were here. Bop Gun would blow that black bustard to bits!” Sipper chirped, wielding his J&J autoshotty one-handed with his good arm. Gunny squinted at Sipper, wondering if he could actually fire the J&J without the gun getting away from him. The drum-fed shotgun could cough teflon-coated uranium faster than Sipper could blink. But Gunny shrugged the thought away. They were done for, Sipper deserved to go down firing.

With a heavy WHUMP, a shadow darker than the translucent black crust rammed the fault line beneath Choppa. Three times it tried to bust through, and then there was silence.

“He can’t get through Gunny! Should I ‘nade it?” Bango asked, sweeping a hand down the bandolier of specialized grenades he was always looking for an excuse to deploy. But Gunny’s ears were still ringing from the door charge.

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“Naw, you’ll scare it off. Let me give it a love tap. Trips! Lift Choppa high so I don’t roast him.”

Triple Trouble reeled in the line, and Gunny took aim. Gunny racked the ignitor and squeezed the trigger. Bennie made an anticipatory hissing sound, like the flamer was sucking in air through its teeth in preparation to chew its target out.

Then the TwinJet roared, two gouts of beautiful liquid fire licked out and struck the frozen surface. The chemical fire ate through the crust and kept burning, a plume of oily black smoke rose from the pool of flame. From all around him Gunny heard Marines oohing at the lightshow. It was a pleasure to burn.

Gunny didn’t know what was in the tanks that kept Bennie’s breath burning bright, but he knew it was nearly impossible to put the TwinJet’s fire out until everything that could be burned had been consumed. As Gunny was hosing flame at the lake of gunk, he realized if the strange fluid ignited, there was a pretty good chance he would incinerate the whole platoon, maybe blow the whole cod clam whale. Again, Gunny shrugged. He’d rather go out with a bang.

The flamer did its work. Soon there was a smoldering ring of fire eating its way outward, and they could see black liquid slopping at the edges.

“Dangle ‘im! Let’s go!” Gunny commanded, and they dunked Choppa’s body up and down, bobbing him in the dark fluid. The whole platoon was at ready to riddle the monster with slugs, bullets, chemical fire, every kind of hurt at their disposal. But nothing took the bait.

“Bennie scared ‘im off, Gunny!” Lefty crowed.

“Chucker’s fussy,” Gunny said. He hadn’t counted on the monster being afraid of fire. Gunny was racking his brain, trying to think of a way to lure the tendril-beast out. His Marines deserved to go out shooting.

The weird magenta flame from the teardrop room was getting brighter, they were running out of time. From the other end of the pipe, there was a thundering drone from the starfish room, like a drumroll performed on an enormous gong.

Gunny fought to clear his mind. His thoughts were jumbled with fussy-fear and squirming rage, mired in a lonely fog of inevitable death. When he was blank, Gunny listened. Somewhere in the distance, a filament of memory glowed.

Awoooooggaaaaaaaa