Raina held the exposed wire to the hull.

“Raina,” BFF20 said in an alarmed way.

“It’s fine,” she said.

“Raina,” he repeated.

She rolled her eyes. Was she destined to be surrounded by men who constantly questioned her mechanical abilities?

The surface of the hull was humming now.

“Okay?” she yelled to Nick.

“Raina, it’s coming in through the ventilation shaft,” BFF20 squealed.

“It works,” Nicked called back happily from the other room.

But Raina was already turning to see inky tentacles emerge from the vent closest to her. They pulsed and drifted in the low gravity, seeking her out.

Something primal clicked inside her, and she screamed like an animal.

“The baby,” BFF20 said in a low tone.

“Raina,” Nick called to her from the other room.

She tried to get down from the ceiling, but in the reduced gravity, everything felt like slow motion.

At last she reached the wires holding the sofa and pulled herself down.

She didn’t mean to look back, but it was irresistible when she heard the click.

The thing had locked a gnarled onyx claw around the wooden table that hung in front of the sofa. It was peeling itself slowly out of the vent in swirling smoky strips that melted together again on the other side.

In the few seconds that Raina watched, it had swollen up like a hot air balloon and then condensed itself into a throbbing, roiling mass that braided itself up the cable that held the wooden table. It pulled and bubbled, using the cable to extricate itself from the vents with greater speed.

“Raina,” Nick said, grabbing her by the shoulders.

She turned to him, shaken.

“Go get the baby,” he told her.

“But…” She was helpless to explain the ice-cold fear she felt at leaving him with the thing that had expanded behind her.

“This is what I was made for,” he said.

Then his blue eyes left hers and he was striding into the room, as if he could wrench the thing apart with his bare hands.

BFF20 buzzed impatiently and Raina swam through the freezing air, back to the bedroom.

What had seemed like a breezy, romantic setting now felt like a funeral. She might never see Nick again.

She forced her eyes away from the bed where they had postponed sealing their mate bond, and headed to the closet. The door was open. She pulled herself inside and slid out the panel to reveal the little chamber where Tesla awaited.

In the blue gloom of the little room, the baby’s amber light was a beacon. But it was fading in and out, dimmer than it had been before.

BFF20 made a worried sound.

“Go to Nick, check on him,” she told the little drone, grateful that he was worried. “Help him if you can.”

Without another word, the droid zipped off to find Nick.

Raina placed a hand against the baby’s pod, willing him to feel her, to know someone loved him.

“We might not make it out of here,” she told him softly. “But know that you were loved. By me and by Nick too.”

She closed her eyes and imagined little Tesla in her arms reading a story book, going for a walk, baking chocolate chip cookies, gazing out the portal at the stars and wondering if they might find one that no one had ever seen before.

“Raina,” BFF20’s voice cut through the stillness.

“What’s happening?” she demanded.

“They’re fighting but Nick is overpowered,” BFF20 said. “He needs your help.”

Raina moved toward the door.

“No,” BFF20 said. “Not that. They’re fighting under the ceiling panels you exposed. He can’t lure it back into the hallway. It seems to know you’re here. It wants to get back here.”

Raina stepped back.

“What are you saying?”

“He wants you to unplug the baby’s pod,” BFF20 said.

Raina blinked.

“If you unplug the pod then non-essential functions will return to normal,” BFF20 said in a careful way.

“But the ceiling,” Raina said. “It’s not secured. It will fall on them. How will Nick be able to get out of the way?”

BFF20 didn’t answer.

“I won’t kill him,” Raina said.

“He wants you to do this,” BFF20 said. “If you don’t, you’re all going to die anyway.”

“I won’t,” she said.

“This is the only way he can save his family,” BFF20 said quietly. “Don’t deny him that.”

“I - I can’t,” she said.

“If you don’t, I will,” BFF20 said. “But it will take me twice as long and Nick is hurting badly right now. Show him some mercy, Raina.”

Pain seared her chest as if she were being slashed by those cruel claws herself.

She moved to the baby, as if in a trance.

“Don’t worry, little one, I’m here,” she murmured as she unlatched the frame that held the pod in place.

The enormous plug behind the frame let go after she spun the bolts loose on either side.

She pulled the pod into her arms.

A weight settled on her as if she were under a truck.

There was a terrible crash in the other room that shook the whole suite.

She fell to her bottom on the floor, Tesla’s pod wedged against her chest, feeling heavy as an anvil.

BFF20 sank to the floor beside her.

“Gravity is at two-hundred percent,” he spluttered.

“The gravity,” she whispered.

She suddenly remembered bumping it up to 2 Gs when she was in the control room, trying to figure out what was wrong with it in the first place.

Nothing had happened. And then Nick had come in and distracted her before she could return it to normal.

Her heart sank as she thought about Nick, trapped under the ceiling, which had fallen on him with twice the weight it would have had in normal gravity.

She moved her legs under herself and stood carefully. It was hard to keep her balance, especially with the pod in her arms.

“Raina,” BFF20 muttered.

She slowly bent to place the baby’s pod on the floor and pick up the little robot in her palm.

He was flat, but he trembled as she stroked his edges.

“I’m going to place you on the dock,” she whispered. “Can you connect?”

“Yes,” he said softly.

When he was safely clicked onto her wrist, she lifted the baby up once again.

Slowly and painstakingly, she made her way out of the chamber and through the bedroom.

It was silent except for the whistling of the ventilation system, which must have sustained some damage from the creature.

From the threshold of the living room, she surveyed the damage.

Both ceiling panels were in cracked pieces on the floor, rough canyons of jagged ceramic exposed the cruel metal ribs to which the material had been fixed.

Broken crystals from the chandelier sparkled all over the living room floor, as if it had been raining diamonds.

The chandelier itself lay atop the crumbled remains of the ceiling, reflecting the emergency light in the room, like a campfire on top of a demolished building.

A lifeless onyx appendage reached out from under the apocalyptic mass, claws extended. It was the only sign that there had ever been life in this room.

Raina allowed herself to sink to the ground.

Clutching the baby’s pod tightly, she bit her lip and tried not to weep. She still had to get them out of here somehow, before Tesla’s back-up energy ran out. She only wanted a moment to regain her strength and say good-bye to Nick. Her heart felt heavier than any increase in gravity could measure.

The memory of his blue eyes and kind expression made her feel as if she were ripping in two.

Slight movement caught her eye.

She whipped her head around, unsure if she could run under these conditions.

The claw remained where it was, unmoving.

But something else was stirring.

If she couldn’t run, what was she supposed to do to protect the baby?

Her mind scrambled for answers.

Something slid out from under the wreckage. It looked like… a fairy. No, a mouse.

Raina blinked.

The tiny thing scampered toward her, stopping to shake its body and flutter nearly transparent furry wings, sending a tiny shower of dust to the floor.

Something crazy began to occur to her.

“Nick?” she whispered.

Its tiny crystal blue eyes locked with hers.

And then it closed its eyes and zoomed in closer.

No.

It wasn’t coming closer, it was growing larger.

By the time the thought had solidified, Nick stood before her, a tender expression on his masculine face.

He knelt next to her.

“You saved us, Raina,” he murmured, bending to kiss her forehead.

Her whole body shook as she wept with relief.

He pulled back and she saw tears running trails down the powdery debris on his cheeks too.

A loud tone issued from the pod in her arms.

It sounded like a warning.