LINA FELT SOMETHING crawling up her leg. She tried to lie still, pressing her arms to her sides. Not that she could move very far anyway—she was wrapped in something smooth and sticky, the same substance CR-8R had found on the upper deck. The stuff was everywhere down there, great white webs threaded between the walls. One of them had broken her fall, but when she tried to crawl free she found herself stuck.

Sparks flared from the hole overhead and the thing on her leg froze, then began to move once more. It was joined by another, starting down at her foot and scuttling silently upward. She craned her neck, feeling the sticky substance knotting in her hair.

She took a breath and tried to calm herself. If she stayed completely still, perhaps these creatures wouldn’t hurt her. They had reached her stomach now, and she felt a cold, almost metallic touch on her skin as they scuttled across the exposed spot where her shirt had torn as she fell.

Then the flash came again, and Lina had to bite her tongue to stop herself from crying out. One of them hovered directly above her, a circular shape about the size of her hand. Eight legs jutted from it, gleaming silver. Black, segmented eyes reflected the sparks from above.

The creature was hanging by a fine thread, descending slowly but steadily toward her face. She saw tiny pincers snapping and heard the whir of microscopic gears.

Then the light was gone. Lina felt a wave of panic, knowing that any moment the spider would touch down, would brush her face with its thin little legs. She couldn’t stand it.

She shook her head violently, trying to tear herself free. The other spiders were still climbing, tugging at her shirt as they scuttled closer, and still closer. She felt more of them on her legs.

“Milo!” she cried out in terror. “Where are you?”

Then, suddenly, the deck was flooded with light. CR-8R swept in, his beams on full power. Milo followed, his fists raised.

Lina heard a high-pitched squeal and saw the spider above her rising fast, legs writhing and tugging at the thread as it pulled itself back up. The silver skin on its back seemed to ripple and blister in the light, and she thought she saw a haze of smoke trailing from it. It vanished into the shadows, leaving a smell like scorched metal.

The other spiders had fled, too, springing free and disappearing into fine cracks in the floor. Lina kicked and fought, managing to wrench one arm free.

CR-8R was using one of his lower appendages to slice through the webs strung across the deck, the sticky membranes clinging to him as he forced his way through. Milo followed, trying to steer clear of the hanging threads.

Then the droid was at Lina’s side, and Milo was grabbing at her hand.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“Just stuck,” Lina said. “Did you see those spider-things? What were they?”

Milo shook his head. “I’ve never seen anything like them,” he said. “Can you get loose?”

Lina shook her head. “It’s really sticky.”

“Hold still, Mistress Lina,” CR-8R said. “I’m going to cut you down.”

Lina saw his appendage arm snaking up toward her, its cutting blade wreathed in sticky white web. She heard the snip of shears, then she dropped suddenly, hitting the floor hard on her back.

“Oh, Mistress Lina, I’m so sorry!” CR-8R said. “I really must be more careful.”

Lina tugged her other arm free and began to peel the webs from her clothes and hair. Her shirt and leggings glistened with gooey white threads, and her hair was a tangled mess. She struggled to her feet, stamping and kicking.

CR-8R guided his glowlamps around the room, light piercing through the tangled forest of hazy cobwebs to the black walls behind. Milo gasped. “What happened here?”

The far side of the deck was a mass of pipes and machinery. Lina recognized cooling ducts and energy converters, and tall banks of power cells. But it all lay in twisted heaps, as though something had chewed the metal up and spat it out again. The cells were dead, their casings cracked and their steel innards strewn across the floor. And everything was covered in the same sticky white webbing.

“Well, I was right about there being a bug in the system,” Lina said. “Lots of bugs, as it turns out. And they’ve been busy.”

“It’s incredible,” Milo agreed. “They feed on power and can chew through a plate-steel floor. It looked to me like they had metal skin.”

“Cyborgs?” CR-8R asked. “But where can they have come from?”

Milo shrugged. “A shipment?” he asked.

“We need to get to the bridge,” Lina said firmly. “We can take a look at the Shade’s records, figure out what she was carrying.”

“But keep your beams on this time, Crate,” Milo said. “It looked to me like they’re afraid of the light.”

“A great plan,” CR-8R agreed. “Provided my batteries hold out.”

“Well, what are we waiting for?” Lina asked. “Let’s move.”

They hurried back up the winding steps, CR-8R keeping his beams trained backward so Milo and Lina could stay in the light. As they climbed she heard the spiders swarming back onto the darkened deck, reclaiming their territory.

They reached the top of the steps, weaving through the maze of crates. Many had been scattered when the gravity failed, and they had to clamber over a creaking, unsteady heap to reach the door.

“Look,” Milo said, pointing. Lying on its side at the top of the pile was a large container made of thick metal plates. It had been torn open, the steel twisted outward as though something had forced its way free.

“‘Cylo,’” Lina said, reading the word stenciled in heavy block letters on the side.

Then CR-8R’s beams flashed one after another as he spun to face a heavy door set into the curved wall. He tapped in the code and the door slid open.

Lina ducked through, scanning the bridge. The only light came from outside the ship, the distant gleam of the galactic center like a pale river in the blackness. Below the viewscreen was a long control panel and four chairs. But the controls themselves were dead, and the room was silent.

She took a step forward, then froze. “Hello?” she called out. “Captain Mondatha, is that you?”

Sitting in the pilot’s seat, her back turned to them, was a dark, robed figure.