Blue - Whipped by sheet metal

“No.”

Kamran’s whisper hitches in his throat. He doesn’t want to believe they’re shooting the Data Cannon. That’s the most valuable part of the installation. They wouldn’t blow it up.

More fire pours through the long shaft, almost surgical in its precision. A thump and a roar later, forty tons of finely tuned communications equipment come burning down the Maw like a divine spear into the heart of the planet. The structure spins, striking teeth as it falls, smashing hydroelectric plants—shattering their tungsten flywheels. Ten thousand tons of shrapnel slice through stone and metal alike.

It’s over, then. The truth dies with us.

The Data Cannon impacts the great whirlpool like a meteorite, and even the relentless thirst of the planet must pause and retch—but only momentarily. Wreckage swirls, belching black smoke like a flaming merry-go-round.

Pieces of rock and jagged metal go streaking over the path. Thousands of tons of capital equipment—much of it spinning at high speed—comes cascading down through the volcanic shaft. A sheet of steel whips across Marsalis’s crest, and she shrieks in pain. The projectile shaves off bits of black scale like broken teeth.

***

At long last, chaos homogenizes into the sound of falling water. Kamran hasn’t been crushed, trampled, or torn to pieces. Marsalis hisses and spits nearby like a furious cat, desperately scrabbling at her wounded crest. The pain has driven her into a frenzy, and he’s glad to be out of arm’s reach.

Mary lies face down a short distance away.

He isn’t sure where Tiran is.

Get up. Those bullets came from above.

***

Alien: Into Charybdis, Chapter 29