The doors to the bathroom pulled apart. Thick, green blood clung to the edges of the airlock doors as they slid into place. On the other side of the door, the back half of the Lamia splayed out on the floor in a pool of blood. Beyond that ragged flesh stood the rest of the crew. Their focus was on the Lamia. Naoki stared at the carnage with his lips pressed into a thin line. He held the side of his bloodied head.

  Erika’s hands trembled. She tried to stop it, but she couldn’t.

  The airlock doors stopped whirring when they finished opening.

  Erika heard her own breathing. It was loud. It would draw attention to her, and she didn’t want attention.

  “We’re supposed to keep the Lamia alive,” Ryder hissed. He gripped a pair of scissors in his hand. “Is the Lamia still alive? It sure as hell doesn’t look alive to me.”

  “It’s dead,” Naoki confirmed.

  “Dead!” Ryder snapped.

  “Yes, dead,” Erika said.

  Ryder glared at Erika.

  “It would have killed us if we’d done nothing,” Erika said. It would have killed you, too. Erika didn’t add that final point, because it would have been antagonistic. Even so, she could hear the words whispering in the air.

  Ryder shook his head.

  Naoki placed his free hand on his hip, and studied the Lamia’s corpse.

  “Erika, were you the one to shut the airlock?” Petra stepped forward.

  “That was Mi-Cha,” Erika said. “I stopped the closing for a moment, so the doors would shut on the Lamia, though.”

  “I’m not surprised,” Petra grinned. “Nice work.”

  Petra clapped. Aymeric and Mi-Cha followed suit.

  ? ? ?

  Naoki heard Theo and Clive clapping behind him. Naoki wanted to wince, but he kept his face neutral.

  SmallWorld would be furious. They couldn’t use a dead alien; they needed living samples.

  And everyone is celebrating this!

  A smile played on Erika’s lips. She was proud of herself, though she was trying to keep the look off her face. At least she wasn’t gloating. At least some part of her understood she’d done wrong.

  Soon, the only people not clapping were Naoki and Ryder.

  If Erika hadn’t killed the Lamia, it would still be on the loose. It might have killed you or someone else.

  Naoki kept one hand on his throbbing temple, and clapped his second on his wrist. SmallWorld was going to flay everyone on the Ark alive, but Naoki clapped. Erika saved everyone’s lives, after all.

  ? ? ?

  Ryder wasn’t angry. Sure Erika was getting attention, and getting attention for doing something wrong, but who cared? Ryder didn’t. The clapping did piss Ryder off, though, but that was only because it reminded him so much of the Lamia’s thudding.

  “Okay, okay!” Ryder stepped forward. “We all appreciate Erika and what she did, but now she’s left us with a problem.”

  Ryder pointed to the Lamia.

  “I don’t think anyone wants blood all over our floors. We’ll put this thing in the holding cell. SmallWorld’s not gonna want it, will they?” Ryder asked.

  Naoki shook his head.

  “Well someone will want it,” Ryder said. “We’ll figure out who will buy a dead alien, then split the profits. Good?”

  “Erika? What do you think?” Petra asked.

  “Last I checked, she wasn’t the captain,” Ryder said.

  “She knows about the aliens,” Petra said. “We need to know what she thinks about this.”

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  “What do you know about the aliens, huh? Where their pussies are?” Mi-Cha added, because of course she needed to add something unhelpful.

  Ryder shot her a look. Mi-Cha shrugged back.

  “Well uh, I don’t know everything about the Lamia,” Erika glanced at Ryder, then her focus flitted away. She wasn’t going to agree with Ryder’s plan.

  “I understand caging it, I really do, but the Lamia is powerful,” Erika continued.

  “And dead,” Ryder said.

  “Probably dead,” Erika corrected.

  Ryder kicked the Lamia’s back half.

  Everyone jumped away from the alien corpse.

  Ryder’s foot sunk into the flesh, then emerged. The Lamia didn’t come back to life.

  “Are you out of your fucking mind?” Aymeric demanded.

  “The creature’s dead,” Clive said.

  “I don’t like it on the ship,” Erika said. “We should vent the body, just in case.”

  “Hold the hell on!” Ryder shouted. “You want to vent the body, you need my permission.”

  Naoki stepped up to Ryder.

  Why don’t you back me up for once. You want this corpse too, I can see it in your eyes.

  “I think we should listen to Erika,” Naoki said.

  “You want to throw a couple million bucks out my airlock?” Ryder said.

  “No. But I want to survive the journey back to Earth,” Naoki said.

  Ryder looked up. Aymeric, Petra, and Mi-Cha stood with Erika. Theo stood to the side. The only person standing with Ryder was Clive.

  The entire crew should have my back.

  They weren’t going to stand by Ryder though, not on this issue. And not anymore. Erika might not be the captain, or hold any real power over the ship, but she’d wormed her way into leadership. Ryder was nothing more than a pawn at Erika’s command.

  That’s exactly what she wanted, wasn’t it?

  Ryder looked at Erika. She refused to look back. That was suspicious. But he couldn’t do anything about it, at least without any proof.

  Ryder took a deep breath.

  “You know what? It probably is safer to vent the body. Use the airlock in the shuttle bay,” Ryder said. “Mi-Cha, I need you to–”

  “I ain’t touching that thing!”

  “I need you, Theo, and Clive to get control back to the ship,” Ryder growled.

  “Oh. I can do that.” Mi-Cha said.

  The crew moved to their task, as they should.

  Just how long will it be until they take their orders from Erika? Ryder pushed that thought out of mind.

  ? ? ?

  The Lamia had been a heavy creature. Even cut in half, the thing was too heavy for a single person to carry on their own. Erika and Aymeric held the larger piece of the Lamia, limbs folded on top of the body. Petra took the second half. She was strong, but all she could manage was dragging that second half along the ground. The Lamia left a streak of green blood behind. It would have to be cleaned up later. Clive would likely be the one to do that, if Erika couldn’t get to it first.

  What if we left that second half behind, and set it somewhere the Carnifex and Aranea saw it?

  Erika thought about animal behavior on Earth. She thought about human behavior, and how someone would react to the sight of a slaughtered alligator. The Carnifex and Aranea might see the dead Lamia and realize that the humans meant business, that they shouldn’t be messed with. Or the aliens would be whipped into a frenzy. Erika didn’t know how the aliens would react to the Lamia’s corpse, and there wasn’t time to run bad experiments. Still, Erika would busy herself with the theoretical.

  She, Aymeric, and Petra dragged the Lamia into the shuttle bay, and to a small room off to the side. This room held two cryo pods on the side, and an airlock in the back for jettisoning trash.

  When Ryder gave the grand tour of the ship months ago, he’d pointed out the room, but didn’t step inside. It was, according to the Captain, the forbidden room. The cryo pods were in place to preserve dead bodies, but nobody was going to die on the journey, so they were a silly precaution.

  Someone will need to put Luther in one of these pods. Erika would want to help, but holding the mangled body of her friend might be too much. Just the thought was too much, so Erika shifted her focus to the dead alien in her hands.

  “We’re gonna have to eject the pieces one at a time.” Aymeric nodded to the airlock. It was too small for the entire Lamia.

  “Petra, you first,” Erika said.

  “I can hold it.”

  “It’s not fair for you to carry one piece. Go on,” Erika said.

  “Alright, alright.”

  Petra hauled her piece to the airlock, and shoved it in.

  The entrance door opened, and Naoki stepped in. He’d cleaned the blood off his face, and had a bandage wrapped around his head.

  “Hold on!” Naoki said. “I just talked to Ryder, and we might have a solution.”

  “A solution from Ryder?” Aymeric asked.

  “From me,” Naoki said.

  Aymeric changed his expression from mildly pissed to politely curious.

  “Ryder gave us permission to hold the body in a cryo pod,” Naoki said. “We just need to know if it is safe.”

  Erika looked at the cryo pods. These were shiny new models, probably brought onto the Ark when it was retrofitted with the lab. The pods would work; the question was whether or not the Lamia would stay dead in the tanks.

  “You said SmallWorld won’t buy a dead alien, right?” Aymeric said. “I thought you’d be cool flinging the Lamia out the airlock.”

  “The body itself will be worth something, to the right buyer.” Naoki’s voice was quiet, but Erika caught what he’d said.

  “Another buyer?” Erika asked.

  Naoki nodded.

  “SmallWorld will be upset that you made money on the side,” Petra said.

  “They won’t find out,” Naoki said. “And even if they do…fuck SmallWorld.”

  Erika blinked.

  “The company put us on this death trap of a ship, gave us an unreasonable timetable, and wants us to be perfect. Well, we’re not perfect,” Naoki said. “So, fuck SmallWorld. We’re going to survive.”

  A grin broke on Aymeric’s face.

  “Well, Erika? We can keep the body, right?” He asked.

  Erika ran the risks over in her head again.

  The Lamia is split in half, and will be frozen. What are the chances it will survive the trauma?

  “I think it will be fine. Let’s open the cryo pods,” Erika said.