Lily Shǒu was not looking forward to her high school science fair.
It had been a total shit year: first, her parents moved them to this colony planet in the middle of nowhere, chasing another Company bonus that never materialized. Lily had to deal with being the new kid yet again, plus the only person of Southeast Asian descent in her class. Then her parents died in a power loader accident that also crushed Lily’s left hand, and her prosthetic replacement introduced new ways for the other kids to tease and torment her.
The only good news was that the Company was hosting the science fair on their private island and sailing the whole class out there on a big fancy yacht. That meant a whole day away from the smoggy and sweltering Company town that was ironically named Fairwind Colony. And if Lily was lucky—if the deal she was planning to make today was successful—she’d never have to go back to the ramshackle barracks where she was now housed. She’d have a ticket off this dead-end world and back to civilization.
But as soon as the yacht cleared harbor and the teenagers’ initial excitement at sailing away passed, the bullying began again.
“ Hey, Lily, could you give us… a hand here?”
Lily checked the time. Not even a minute since their science teacher, Mr. Ahidjo, had gone below to check on motion-sick Erin Baxter, leaving the rest of his students unsupervised on deck. Teylor Wernicke was the instigator, of course. She’d been Lily’s nemesis ever since Lily started scoring higher than Teylor on Ahidjo’s organic chemistry tests.
Lily turned around to face Teylor, who stood next to an artfully arranged picnic spread—provided by Teylor’s well-to-do parents for this special outing—on a round table in the center of the deck, surrounded by their gawking classmates.
“I do your homework because you pay me, Teylor,” Lily said flatly. She would have refused if she didn’t need the money. “Get someone else to do the manual labor.”
“But I just want to borrow you for a second.” Teylor held up a jar of gourmet gherkins. “You’re the strongest here, Lily, everyone knows that. Can’t you do us this one teensy favor?”
Lily stepped closer to the table. “What’s in it for me?”
Teylor’s plastic smile faltered for a split second. “How about you don’t look like a bitch in front of everyone?”
Lily realized she had an opportunity to get back at her tormentor, and smiled in return. “Sure, Tey-Tey. Hand it over.”
Teylor held out the jar. Lily used her right hand to grab it by the bottom, then clamped her robotic left hand—a prosthetic controlled by her brain—around the top. She paused to adjust her grip, then squeezed hard enough to crumple the lid and shatter the jar. Glass rained all over the expensive picnic, and brine splashed Teylor’s sundress.
“What the fuck!” the blonde screeched.
Lily enjoyed the moment as she dropped the broken jar into a now-soggy pile of macaroons and said sarcastically, “Oops. Guess I don’t know my own strength.”
“What is happening up here?” Mr. Ahidjo shouted.
The science teacher stood in the doorway leading up from the yacht’s interior, mouth hanging open. Lily and Teylor started talking over each other.
Ahidjo waved his hands. “I don’t want to know!”
Teylor pouted. “But Mr. Ahidjo, you asked—”
“Forget it. Teylor, did you bring a change of clothes?”
“I have a swimsuit?”
Ahidjo turned to one of the boys. “Zak! Give your girlfriend your jacket.”
It was Zak’s turn to pout. “But it’s getting cold out here. Looks like a storm coming.”
“Exactly why Teylor shouldn’t be standing around in wet clothing. Take her to the washroom to get changed.” Ahidjo pointed at Lily. “You. Go below and fix your hand.”
“What? My hand’s fine.” Lily rotated her prosthetic in a full circle at the wrist, for effect.
“Your other hand, Lily.”
Lily looked at her right palm and saw some small cuts from the broken glass. “Oh.”
“You know where the first aid kit is. The rest of you, let’s clean up this mess! Safety first.”
Lily headed for the door into the yacht’s main cabin, smiling to herself. She would have needed to sneak away from the group at some point anyway, to take care of her private business deal. Now she could kill two birds with one stone.
* * *
Lily pushed open the door to the cargo bay. It swung back with a creak and thudded against the wall, surprising the man inside the compartment. He nearly dropped the packet of pink powder he was holding up to his face.
“Close the door!” The man wiped his nose, sealed the packet, and shoved it inside his jacket. “You’re early.”
“I was bored.” Lily stepped inside and pulled the door closed. “Ready to do some business, Mr. Bevetoir?”
The Company man shrugged. Lily had been surprised to receive a direct message from him last month. At first she thought it was just the Company covering their asses with an insultingly belated condolence call, a whole semester after her parents had died on the job. But it turned out Bevetoir wanted to negotiate for something that Lily’s Ma and Ba had left behind.
Lily didn’t know what the pale, spindly, long-tailed creatures sealed in the specimen bag were, but the fact that her parents had hidden them inside a compact cold-sleep rig disguised as a beat-up old toolbox meant they probably weren’t supposed to have it. She’d tried looking it up in the colony database, but the weird spidery things weren’t native to LV-2179. And they were packed for long-haul transport, which meant exporting them off-planet.
Lily had suspected her parents were into some shady stuff. They’d always had some new get-rich-quick scheme brewing, and when the scheme didn’t work out, they’d engineer a desperate hustle to make ends meet. Bevetoir’s involvement explained why the Company hadn’t just sent a squad of security goons or lawyers to retrieve their property. Bevetoir must have still had a way to fence the specimen that his late co-conspirators had stolen.
As much as Lily disliked the man, she hated the Company even more. They exploited everyone and cared little about the consequences. Lily just wanted to get away from this world. Bevetoir could help make that happen.
“Tell me about these weird giant rats first,” Bevetoir said, crouching down next to a series of cages containing ten live, bulldog-sized rodents. They were part of a group project on how eating LV-2179’s native fauna affected digestion in mammals.
“They’re one of Fairwind’s native species. We call them ’baras—short for ‘happy-baras,’” Lily said. “Because they’re a lot like capybaras from back on Earth, but they look like they’re always smiling. See?” She pointed to one ’bara that was sniffing Bevetoir through its cage, mouth open and teeth bared in a dopey grin.
“Weird.” Bevetoir stood up again. “Anyway, show me what I’m here for. You’ve kept them all sealed up?”
Lily nodded and found her project crate among all the supplies being transported to the island for the science fair. Bevetoir took several steps back as she awkwardly maneuvered her crate onto the long table at the back wall of the room.
“They’re in cold sleep. Temperature, vitals, everything’s been steady. You can see for yourself on the readouts.” She opened the toolbox and showed him the display screen inside.
Bevetoir stepped forward to look at the tangle of creatures sealed inside the transparent enclosure. “Well, hello there, boys.”
“Talk about weird,” Lily muttered. “What are these things, anyway? I know they’re not native to Fairwind. Some kind of genetic experiment?”
“It’s a funny story. The Company recovered a bunch of these facehuggers from that big meteor crater up north, but the egg count was off. Good thing your folks had those no-kill vermin traps set up around their melon farm.”
“Sorry, did you call them… facehuggers?”
“Yeah. Because they like to, you know.” Bevetoir put one hand over his nose and mouth.
“And they lay eggs?”
“They come from eggs. Don’t worry about it, kid. All you need to know is, I have buyers lined up who are going to pay top dollar for these samples.”
Lily used her prosthetic to close the toolbox lid. “Great. So… when do I get my money?”
“After we get to the island.” Bevetoir placed a hand over Lily’s prosthetic, on top of the toolbox handle. “I’ll take this now, thanks.”
The man’s skin was cold and clammy. Lily really hoped that was because of the drugs. “Maybe I should hold on to it until then.”
“Don’t you trust me, sweetie?”
Not as far as I can throw you. “You don’t want to have to lug this big old thing around while you’re giving everyone the tour, do you? It’ll be safe in my crate.”
Bevetoir stared at her for a moment, then yanked back hard. There was no way he was going to break her robot grip, but Lily let him struggle for a moment before pulling the heavy toolbox away. She threw her other elbow into Bevetoir’s chest when he tried to follow. But instead of taking the hint and backing off, the man leaned forward and loomed over her. His breath smelled like a combination of rotten eggs and cat piss.
“You don’t know what you’re messing with, kid,” Bevetoir growled.
Lily glared up into his unnaturally dilated pupils. “I think I have some idea.”
Bevetoir grabbed the toolbox with both hands and threw his weight backward. Lily kept her grip on the lid handle, but their tug-of-war strained the old hinges too far, and the battered metal came apart. Bevetoir fell onto his backside. The specimens spilled out between them. Lily heard the unmistakable crack and hiss of the cold-sleep rig coming unsealed when the enclosure smacked against the metal deck.
“Oh, shit.” Bevetoir scrambled to his feet. “Oh, fuck.”
He leapt through the open doorway, out of the cargo bay and into the corridor. Lily ran for the exit, but Bevetoir slammed the door shut before she made it there.
The creatures inside the specimen bag twitched.
“Open the door!” Lily shouted. “You can’t leave me in here with these things!”
Something beeped outside, and the handle wouldn’t budge, not even when she applied all of her prosthetic’s mechanical strength. And despite what everyone thought, her prosthetic wasn’t sturdy enough to survive punching through a wall. It only looked tough.
Lily stepped around the now-squirming specimen bag and kicked it as far away as she could, to the other side of the compartment where the ’bara cages were. The rodents started screeching unhappily as one facehugger worked its tail free, whipping it around until it latched onto one of the cages.
Lily didn’t want to know what it did after it hugged a face.
She remembered seeing an “in case of emergency” placard on the wall and ran over to it. The cargo bay was divided into two sections, marked by a black-and-yellow stripe in the middle of the floor between the door and the ’bara cages. A watertight bulkhead would drop down and isolate the two sections in case of a hull breach.
Lily felt like it took forever for her to find the manual override, pry open the access cover, and yank the lever. As she did so, she saw the first facehugger using its spindly legs to walk inside one ’bara cage, heading for the rodent cowering in the back corner. More tails had found their way out of the specimen bag, and more claw-legs were tearing the hole bigger.
Then the bulkhead clanged into place, and she only heard distressed squealing and rattling from the ’baras.
Lily went to the cargo bay door and yelled for help, but Bevetoir was long gone. She was too deep amidships for anyone else to hear her.
* * *
Abraham Ahidjo didn’t like dealing with the Company man, Preston Bevetoir. Something about him just rubbed Abe the wrong way. But Abe reminded himself that he was here for his students, typical teenagers who didn’t think much about their futures beyond the next day or two. Some of these kids had more potential than could be realized on an out-of-the-way colony planet like LV-2179, and Abe was determined to make sure that at least one of them got out of here. That meant sucking up to the Company.
Bevetoir was supposed to be talking to the group of students assembled on the deck about the lab facilities that the Company had built into the cliffside of their private island—it was on all the Fairwind Colony brochures, despite being nowhere near the actual settlement. But instead, he was yelling at the yacht crew over his wrist communicator. Abe walked up to the bow, where Bevetoir was standing.
“I don’t care about regulations!” Bevetoir shouted. “Get us to the island as fast as possible!”
Abe waved and spoke in a friendly tone. “We’re not in that much of a hurry, are we? It’s not even lunchtime yet. Listen, the kids are waiting for—”
Bevetoir snarled, “Can’t you see I’m busy?”
“Sorry to interrupt. But you know kids, if we don’t give them something to do they’ll find some way to get into trouble—”
“Fuck the kids. Leave me alone.” Bevetoir turned and walked away, resuming his yelling.
Abe sighed and turned back to his students. Fortunately, the yacht was way ahead of schedule, and the sight of the lavishly landscaped island shoreline appearing on the horizon was enough to capture the kids’ attention. Abe moved away from the railing so they could get a better look.
He noticed movement back toward the main cabin and walked over to see if it was Lily Shǒu coming back up. She was his best student by a long shot. He wanted her to enjoy this excursion as much as possible.
Someone screamed behind him. Abe whipped his head around and saw teenagers scattering in all directions. Bevetoir was prone at the edge of the deck. A pale cable was wrapped around his left ankle, and he was screaming bloody murder.
Two boys—Zak Stern and Cody Ridenour—knelt down on either side of Bevetoir and grabbed the cable, unwrapping it from his leg. Abe got closer and saw that it wasn’t a cable, it was a… tentacle?
Whatever it was, it had an incredibly strong grip. It took both Zak and Cody working together to free Bevetoir. Just as the man crawled forward, away from the tentacle, the rest of the animal rose into view over the side of the ship. The tentacle was actually a tail, and the pale creature attached to it had a small, flat torso, and spidery legs extending from either side.
Abe sputtered as Bevetoir reached him and grabbed for the science teacher, trying to pull himself up. “What is that thing? Did it come out of the ocean?”
“Facehugger.” Bevetoir winced in pain as he tried to put weight on his left ankle, then settled for sitting up. “Bad news. Let’s get out of here. Carry me to a lifeboat—”
“We’re not leaving these kids!”
Zak had both his hands around the facehugger’s tail. The creature reared back and leapt up, flying toward Cody’s face. The boy yelped and put up his hands, intercepting the spindly legs before they could close around his head.
“Help!” Cody shouted.
Somebody ran past Abe, sandals squeaking on the deck. It was Sara Merkand, holding a fire axe. She swung the axe down between Cody and Zak, severing the tail. Yellow blood sprayed out onto Zak’s hands and forearms. He laughed out loud as he threw the limp tail aside. Then his clothes started smoking, and he went completely silent. Abe recognized the smell of acid burning flesh.
“You see that?” Bevetoir hissed. “It’s going to get even worse. Help me get away. We can escape. I’ll pay you whatever you want.”
“Shut up.” Abe wheeled around, spotted a long pole with a hook on the end hanging next to a life preserver, and grabbed it. He used the pole to smack the weakened facehugger torso out of Cody’s hands. It sailed over the railing and splashed into the water below.
Meanwhile, the severed tail was still squirming and leaking yellow fluid. A moment later, it disappeared down the hole its blood had burned in the steel deck plating.
“Shit.” Abe stood frozen, trying to process what was happening.
Zak was in shock, staring at his hands, which appeared to be dissolving. Yup, there was blood, and that was bone. Teylor skidded to a halt in front of her boyfriend and dumped the contents of a water bottle over his hands. Only then did he start screeching, and that snapped Abe back to action.
He grabbed Sara by the shoulder and yanked her backward. “Get the burn kit!” She nodded, dropped the half-dissolved axe, and stumbled off. “Has anyone seen Lily?”
* * *
Lily was tired of screaming at the cargo bay door. She’d been locked in for hours now, more than enough time for Bevetoir to make up any story he wanted about her and convince everyone it was true. The ’baras had gone quiet, too, after a lot of hissing and squelching. Lily hoped they hadn’t suffered too much.
She indulged her frustration briefly, tearing open all the other crates on this side of the bulkhead, dumping out everyone else’s science project supplies. If she wasn’t going to get what she wanted, why should anyone else?
But the tantrum left her empty. Finally, she sat down on the floor and slumped back against the cold wall.
She felt a lump pressing against her backside and moved aside to see a small packet of pink powder. Bevetoir’s drugs. He must have dropped them during their scuffle earlier.
Lily held the powder up to the light and wondered if it really was as great as Bevetoir seemed to think it was. It wouldn’t solve any of her problems, but maybe it would help her forget about them for a while.
Of course, after the drug’s effects wore off, she’d still have the same problems to deal with.
Fuck my life.
A sizzling noise came from the ceiling. A circular dark spot formed and grew in the metal plating. Lily stared at it, wondering what would cause that kind of effect. The spot turned into an actual hole. A yellow substance dripped down, trailing pungent smoke.
“What the hell!” Lily jumped back. The yellow stuff was burning a hole right through the deck under her feet. And more was dripping down from above.
She grabbed a glass beaker out of a nearby crate, using her prosthetic—safety first, as Mr. Ahidjo always said—and held it under the ceiling hole. A drip of yellow fell into the beaker, burned straight through the glass, and continued through the floor.
Acid, then.
Ridiculously strong acid that was going to make a hole in the bottom of the boat and start letting water in.
She really needed to get out of here.
Lily looked at the open crates. Looked at the door to the storage bay, locked from the outside. Looked at the acid falling from above. Looked at the pink powder in her hand.
Alkaline, she was sure, judging from Bevetoir’s physiological response when he’d snorted it. Tried to remember whether it was azanide or hydroxyl she wanted for this reaction.
The holes in the ceiling and floor were getting bigger.
Lily started tossing crates, looking for Jooli Abbas’s industrial machining demonstration supplies. She had to try something.
* * *
Meanwhile, on the yacht’s upper deck, the humans tended to their injured. Abe saw a black shape climbing up the side of the yacht just before it leapt onto Cody Ridenour’s back. The new creature clamped needle-sharp teeth into his shoulder.
Abe had never seen anything like this animal. It had a shiny black exoskeleton, but was far too large to be an insect. Medium-dog-sized, with four legs, a long spiky tail, two rows of very sharp teeth, and no eyes. Extending from either side of its bulbous, eyeless, knife-toothed head were clusters of whiskers. More than anything, it looked like one of Fairwind’s native ‘happy-baras’ that had been covered in armor plating and then dipped in black tar.
Cody cried out and swatted at the black-bara. Before Abe could tell him to stop, Cody stumbled backward into the railing and lost his balance. He and the black-bara both fell overboard.
“Shit!” Abe ran to the railing. He briefly saw Cody’s head above water as the black-bara tore into the boy’s neck. Then both disappeared below the waves, leaving only an expanding cloud of blood. “Man overboard!”
A low whine caught Abe’s attention, somewhere past the stern of the yacht and growing louder. It sounded like an aircraft engine. Abe turned his head, following the sound.
A gray shape approached, flying low over the water with the mid-morning sun behind it. Abe didn’t recognize the silhouette of the aircraft, but it definitely wasn’t any of the colony shuttles. And there hadn’t been enough time for anyone to call for help.
He turned and knelt down to accost Bevetoir, who had been crawling away from the bow while barking orders into his wrist-comm.
“Hey! Are those the Company’s private military contractors? That looks like an armed dropship—” Abe pointed at the same time that the craft banked into a steep turn, heading toward the steel and glass levels built into the island’s cliffside. “—and it’s heading for the lab facility—”
Now that the craft was no longer backlit, Abe could see more details on its surface. It definitely wasn’t a human-built vehicle. No markings of any kind. Its curved shape seemed almost organic.
Something flared at the top of the cliff. Two missiles streaked toward the craft. A moment later, white flashes flickered in midair. Both missiles exploded without making contact. The teens still on the deck made astonished noises.
Abe grabbed Bevetoir’s collar. “Why does a science lab have missile launchers? What the fuck is going on here?”
Bevetoir scowled. “You think the Company invested in a whole colony on this shithole just to farm novelty melons and breed giant rats? You bumfucks are camouflage. We’re here to study their shit.” He pointed at the alien aircraft. “I guess they’re taking exception to that.”
Abe’s head was spinning. “Wait. So that meteor that crash-landed up north—”
“Wasn’t a meteor. But hey, finders keepers, right?”
“The Company is stealing from aliens?”
Two pulses of bright blue light shrieked from the front of the aircraft and struck the lab. Dirt and rock exploded outward in a ball of fire. Debris and bodies tumbled into the ocean. Everyone on the yacht deck watched, speechless.
Then Bevetoir tapped his wrist-comm and started yelling again. “Captain! Let’s turn around and get the fuck out of here!”
“Yes, Mr. Bevetoir,” the yacht captain replied shakily. “Emergency bulkheads sealed off two compartments below. I think we can still make it back to the mainland.”
“Do it! Do it now!”
The yacht tilted and groaned as the captain changed course. Abe dragged Bevetoir toward the nearest door. Dennis Kotto was holding it open.
“Come on, Mr. Ahidjo!” Dennis’s eyes widened. “Oh, shit.”
Abe was afraid to ask. He handed Bevetoir off to Dennis, then turned to see what had gotten the kid so worked up.
The alien aircraft had turned away from the devastated island to follow the yacht. It was now hovering above the deck. Lights flickered on the craft’s surface, reflecting off the yacht, and Abe felt sure that they were being scanned.
A hatch opened in the aircraft, spilling white light. A dark blot appeared in the middle of the light. It dropped toward the yacht, trailing a cable behind it.
Dennis shouldered past Abe, mesmerized. “What is that thing?”
The dark shape thudded onto the deck. It was humanoid, bipedal, wearing metallic armor, with long tendrils dangling from either side of its head. When it stood upright, it was well over two meters tall.
“Dennis,” Abe warned.
The teenager ignored him, holding up both hands and walking slowly toward the alien. “Greetings, visitor!”
The alien turned its head toward Dennis and made a sound, something between a roar and a growl. It wasn’t very loud, but it made Abe’s bowels suddenly feel loose.
“Dennis. Step back. Slowly.”
“But Mr. Ahidjo—”
Abe lunged forward and grabbed Dennis’s sleeve. He yanked the boy backward. They collapsed in a heap just short of the doorway.
While they struggled to disentangle their limbs, a new noise began coming from the alien: an intermittent electronic beeping. Abe and Dennis both froze. Abe levered himself up to see over the teenager.
The alien was looking around the deck. A triangular pattern of red dots reflected off various surfaces as it searched for… something that was not the two humans. Something that had been stolen from it.
But it might decide to interrogate any nearby humans if it thought they knew where to find its stolen property.
“Get inside,” Abe whispered. “Now. While it’s distracted.”
“But aren’t you curious what it’s looking for? This is, like, real science, Mr. Ahidjo. Exploring the unknown and shit.”
“I’d rather not die for science.”
The alien clicked and chittered. Something attached to its shoulder whirred and moved. It was a fat cylindrical object, horizontally mounted. It turned to track where the red dots—targeting lasers—were focused.
The front end of the cylinder spun rapidly. Blue pulses burst forth and tore a hole in the deck. Wood splinters and metal shrapnel exploded out. Shiny black fragments and bright yellow slime followed.
Another black-bara came boiling up out of the hole, razor-teeth gnashing air. The large alien roared, took a step backward. Started shooting again.
“Holy shit!” Dennis scrambled over Abe. The rodent-shaped devil he knew was more motivating than real science. Abe followed him inside and slammed the door shut behind them.
* * *
Over the tannoy, the captain directed everyone to muster in the galley and prepare to abandon ship. Abe did a headcount and realized there was still one student missing. In fact, he’d barely seen her for the whole boat ride. He moved through the group, asking if anyone had seen Lily. He noticed Bevetoir studiously avoiding his gaze. Abe walked over to where the Company man was sitting on a bench, getting his ankle bandaged by one of the yacht crew.
“Where’s Lily Shǒu?” Abe asked.
Bevetoir looked up. “How should I know?”
Abe leaned over the other man. “We are responsible for the safety of these kids.”
Bevetoir grumbled. “She needed a time out. Got a real attitude problem, that one.”
“Where?”
“In the cargo bay.”
“Jesus Christ!” Abe spun around and ran out of the galley.
He had to check a couple of wall maps to find the right compartment. He was two meters away from the cargo bay door when it blew outward with a bang. The blast knocked him onto his ass.
Lily walked out of the cargo bay, coughing at the smoke from the explosion. She held a large, flat metal disk in her prosthetic left hand. Thick gray fabric was wrapped around her left arm up to the shoulder.
“What is happening out here?” Lily asked, walking forward.
“Out here? What about in there?” Abe pointed at the blasted door. “Did you find explosives?”
“Not exactly. Do you know about the acid that ate through the middle of the boat?”
Abe stepped around the debris and went to the doorway to gape at the holes in the floor and ceiling. Then, while he searched the crates for emergency supplies, he gave Lily a quick summary of the situation—spider-thing attack, black-baras attacking, both critters bleeding acid, sudden UFO, giant hunter-alien with energy weapons. He concluded by saying, “Your turn, Lily. What did you do to the door?”
“I, uh, improvised.” She didn’t meet his eyes. Abe had been teaching long enough to recognize when a student was about to lie to him.
“I need you to tell me the truth, Lily,” Abe said. “People are dying. Just tell me.”
And then it was Lily’s turn to give him a tearful summary of what had happened to her. Abe listened and felt his anger toward Bevetoir growing into a violent rage. Lily could be forgiven some lapses in judgment. She was still just a kid, after all. She’d been through a lot this year. But Bevetoir was a reckless thief, drug addict and murderer.
“Okay,” Abe said after Lily finished, still crying. He was almost done gathering all the emergency kits in a duffel bag. “We’ll deal with Bevetoir later. Right now, we need to get everyone safely off this boat.”
Lily nodded. Her eyes were red and unfocused. Abe needed her present and engaged. Fortunately, he knew one thing that always captured Lily’s attention: chemistry.
“How did you know you could cause an explosion?” he asked.
“Lucky guess,” she murmured. “Saw what the drugs did to Mr. Bevetoir. Figured it was azide anions. Mix with super-strong acid and together they go kaboom.”
“But how did you handle the acid? It seems to eat through just about anything.”
Lily perked up and hefted the disk—Abe realized it was a circular saw blade—and patted her fabric gauntlet. “Low-friction insulated coating. Borrowed these from Jooli Abbas’s project on synthetic industrial chemicals.”
“Right.” Abe caught on. “PTFE. Non-reactive fluoropolymer. Strong carbon-fluorine bonds have high resistance to acid. That’s pretty genius.”
A weak smile decorated Lily’s face. “Good enough for extra credit?”
Something squeaked and hissed behind her, and she and Abe scrambled to get out of the cargo bay. One of the black-baras skittered out into the corridor after them.
Abe was still digging for the flare gun he’d stuffed into the duffel bag when Lily stepped forward and sliced the creature in two with the saw blade. Its angry screech was interrupted by the crunching of its exoskeleton and the sharp scrape of the saw blade against the metal deck. Lily used the flat of the saw blade to smash the black-bara until its long spiky tail stopped moving. She lifted the saw blade and shook her arm. Yellow acid dripped off and followed the black corpse as it sizzled through the deck.
“Galley!” Abe said. “Now! Before anything else crawls out of the walls.”
* * *
It was a miracle they reached the galley without encountering any more black-baras. While Mr. Ahidjo and Mr. Bevetoir finalized the evacuation procedures with the yacht crew, Lily, carrying her moderately damaged saw blade, searched the kitchen for additional defensive supplies. Some of the other teens followed her lead.
“What about baking soda?” Agnes McKail held up an orange carton.
Lily shook her head. “Not alkaline enough. Look for some lye. It’ll have biohazard warnings all over the container.”
“But we use baking soda to clean up acid spills in class,” Teylor Wernicke said.
Lily snapped, “We’re not in class! Just stay out of the way, Teylor. You might be hot shit at coding, but this is chemistry.”
Teylor looked genuinely hurt. “I’m just trying to help.”
Lily sighed. “Is Zak okay? I heard he got burned by some acid.”
“Yeah. He’s sedated now. He’ll live, but his hands…”
It took Lily a moment to realize that Teylor was actually expressing a human emotion, and then she felt obligated to respond in kind. “They’re doing amazing things with prosthetics these days. I can recommend a good surgeon.”
“Thanks.” Teylor shuffled her feet. “I wasn’t sure if you’d want to talk about that.”
Lily had to laugh. “Teylor, this must be the first time in six months that you’ve not wanted to say some shit about my robot hand.”
Mr. Ahidjo stepped into the kitchen. “Okay, girls, listen up.”
Dennis Kotto raised his hand. “I’m here too.”
Ahidjo ignored him. “Everyone’s going in the lifeboats. Four groups, and we’ll need supplies. Food, water, anything you can find, packed in watertight containers if possible.”
Something thumped above them, possibly an explosion. Everyone stopped to listen for more creature noises. Lily pointed upward. “What about that—hunter-alien? Isn’t he going to chase us?”
“He seems to be focused on exterminating the black-baras,” Ahidjo said. “Let’s do our best to stay out of his way. Five minutes.” He stepped out of the kitchen. The teens went back to work.
“Hey, look!” Agnes rolled a shelf of dirty trays away from the wall, revealing a stack of gunnysacks. “There’s a whole bunch of rice.”
Lily scoffed, “We’re not going to cook rice in a lifeboat.”
“I know that. But there might be more stuff back here!”
Agnes shifted the top bag off the stack. Behind it was a cardboard box with a large, wet stain discoloring the label.
Lily turned to look. “Wait, Agnes—”
The other girl pulled the box forward, revealing a hole in the wall, still smoking and ragged around its yellow-slimed edges. A black-bara poked its head out of the hole. It screeched up at Agnes. She yelped. A spiky black tail whipped out of the wall and pierced her forearm. Agnes screamed as she was dragged forward. Her head slammed against the wall.
A knife-toothed jaw telescoped forth from the black-bara’s mouth, stabbing into Agnes’s right eye. She gurgled and went silent. The jaw retracted, pulling gore out of the dead girl’s eye socket.
“Out!” Lily shouted over the other teens’ screaming. “Everybody get the fuck out!”
* * *
After everyone was out, the yacht crew closed emergency bulkheads around the galley to contain the black-bara in there. Then everyone split up to go to their lifeboats. Mr. Ahidjo had all the medical supplies from the cargo bay, so the injured ended up in his group—Bevetoir and Zak, and that meant Teylor too, since she wouldn’t leave her sedated boyfriend. The yacht crew divided themselves among the other three groups of teenagers. Ahidjo called Lily and Dennis over to join him. Dennis carried Bevetoir, who led the way since he knew where their lifeboat was, near the stern of the yacht.
They were nearly there, passing the poorly lit engine compartment and about to climb up to the deck where the lifeboat was stored, when Lily heard scratching up ahead. A black-bara popped into the corridor ahead of them, its whiskers twitching as if sensing something. Everyone froze in place. Another bara joined the first, then a third, then a fourth.
“Lily,” Ahidjo said quietly.
“Yeah.” Lily hefted her saw blade, tightened her gauntlet, and stepped forward. The others moved to either side of the corridor to make room for her.
All three ’baras raised their bulbous black heads. Their happy smiles now looked sinister. Lily’s heart pounded. If this was to be her last stand, she was going to go down swinging. The saw blade’s nonstick coating had started coming off, and the metal was warped from her earlier bashing of just one creature. Lily hoped her weapon would hold together long enough for the others to get away.
She heard a high-pitched whine from the darkness ahead. A bolt of blue energy lanced into the middle of the swarm. It obliterated one bara in a puff of yellow. Lily raised the saw blade and stumbled backward into a crouch. More shots came from the energy weapon. The three remaining ’baras turned their eyeless heads back toward the shooter before they, too, were blasted out of existence. Yellow acid splattered off Lily’s makeshift shield.
The other humans shouted behind her. She wasn’t focused on them. She lowered her saw blade shield and saw the giant, armored hunter-alien step into the light. A pair of long serrated blades jutted from its left gauntlet. It had apparently cut its way through the infestation on the yacht, but at some cost. Bright green blood oozed out from claw slashes and bite marks on its unarmored forearms and legs.
Lily willed herself to stand up. She wasn’t going to die cowering. Acid dripped off the saw blade. She held it away from herself to avoid burning her shoes.
A red light flickered to life on the side of the hunter’s helmet, and three dots that looked like targeting lasers appeared on Lily’s saw blade.
The hunter growled. More dots lit up on its helmet and painted flickering patterns over the saw blade.
What the hell was he waiting for?
Lily gritted her teeth. She’d had enough of this shit.
“You want a piece of me?” She stepped forward and brandished the saw blade. “You want to fight? Let’s go, asshole!”
“Lily, what are you doing?” Ahidjo hissed.
“So you’re a hunter, yeah? Oh, good for you, shooting fish in a barrel.” Lily banged the saw blade against the wall to her left, sending acid droplets into the metal. The alien cocked its head at her. “Killing and dying, that’s easy! I know! My Ma and Ba both died real easy, it was over in the blink of an eye.” She still had nightmares about the accident, with her parents’ final cries filling her head. “I’m the one who lived, and that’s been hard as fuck. You think I have anything to lose? I lost my whole family and a fucking hand! You want some of this, come and get it, motherfucker!”
She was now within a meter of the hunter, her head tilted back to look up at the eye-slits in its helmet. The targeting lasers glowed against Lily’s sternum. Her heartbeat had slowed. At least it would be quick.
The device strapped to the alien’s left arm started beeping loudly. The hunter chittered and stepped to the side, aiming its lasers behind Lily. She turned and saw three red lights painting Bevetoir’s midsection. Dennis yelped and shoved the man away, joining Ahidjo, Zak, and Teylor against the other wall.
The hunter’s targeting lasers tracked upward, moving over Bevetoir’s terrified face, and shot into the corridor behind him.
A pale, spindly thing shakily skittered its way toward them. The tailless facehugger. It hadn’t drowned like Ahidjo had said.
Lily stared at Bevetoir. “Hey, look, Preston. It’s your little friend.”
“What?” The man turned around. “Oh, no.”
The facehugger launched itself off the floor and wrapped its spidery limbs around Bevetoir’s head, strangling his next words. He fell over and convulsed against the deck. Dennis moved to help, but Ahidjo pulled him back.
“We’d better go,” Lily said. “I’m not sure how quickly that thing will finish with him.”
“What the hell is it doing?” Dennis asked.
“The same thing the other facehuggers did to all those ’baras. And I don’t want to be here to find out what that’s going to do to a human.”
The hunter emitted a low growl and raised its right arm, making a fist. Two long, jagged blades sprang out of its gauntlet.
Ahidjo pointed toward the ladder. “Come on, kids, we’ve got a lifeboat to catch. Climb up to the deck.”
Lily looked at the hunter as the others slid past her. “He’s all yours.”
The hunter pointed at her left hand, then at the acid burns in the floor, and chittered a rising tone. Not a threat—a question?
“What? The saw?” Lily realized what it wanted. “Oh. Maybe your people never invented anything like PTFE. And if you hunt those acid creatures a lot…” She held out the saw blade and carefully unwrapped her gauntlet. “Safety first. Enjoy.”
The hunter took the fluoropolymer-coated saw blade and fabric. It made a new noise, higher pitched, one that Lily could almost believe was a sound of approval. She waited until the hunter had stepped past her, cautiously approaching Bevetoir’s intermittently twitching body. Then she climbed the ladder and closed the hatch on the deck, leaving the predators to themselves.
* * *
Shortly before the yacht sank, as Lily peered through one of her lifeboat’s portholes, she saw a dark shape being lifted up to the hovering alien craft on a cable. The aircraft tilted down and fired its energy weapons again, obliterating what was left of the yacht. Then the hunter’s ship revved its engines, headed upward, and disappeared into the gathering clouds.
The lifeboats had rudimentary steering controls. Mr. Ahidjo and the yacht crew managed to bring everyone back together after they had gotten clear of the wreckage. Lily went topside with Ahidjo to help lash all four lifeboats into a larger, more stable raft structure. They stayed up there after the work was done.
“Crew’s made radio contact with the colony,” Ahidjo said. “There’s a rescue ship on the way.”
“Am I…” Lily choked back a sob. “Am I in a lot of trouble?”
Ahidjo blew out a breath. “I think the Company has much bigger problems right now.”
“But I brought that thing on board—”
“No.” Ahidjo grabbed her human hand. “Listen to me, Lily. You made some bad choices, sure. But if anyone’s to blame, it’s Bevetoir. You did the right thing in the end. That’s what matters. And that’s what I’ll tell anyone who asks.”
Lily sniffled. “I just wanted to get away from this place. All the bad memories. I’ve been trying to beg, borrow, or steal my way out. But now… I don’t know what to do.”
Ahidjo squeezed her hand. “You know, Lily, you’re probably eligible for any number of chemical engineering internships or work-study programs on core planets. You’ve got the chops. You just need an adult to sponsor your application.”
Lily blinked away tears. “Thanks, Mr. Ahidjo.”
“Call me Abe.”
They sat together in silence and watched hazy sunlight dance over the waves.