With his left hand, he raised the belt of grenades toward his mouth—

Sheridan eased her hand off his wrist.

Slowly, he drew the knife and placed it at her throat. Then, almost gently, he shoved down on her gun hand, his left hand still trailing the belt of grenades, forcing the pistol toward the ground. She resisted for a moment, then allowed it, and the gun lowered.

Free, Layanna wheeled around, her eyes blazing, grabbed the gun in one hand and punched Sheridan across the jaw with the other. Sheridan was flung back, but she kept her grip on the gun and tugged it free of Layanna’s grip even as she fell. Blinking away the blow, she took aim at Layanna and—

Avery flung the belt of grenades at Sheridan. The belt struck her gun arm and sent the shot wide.

Avery stepped forward as Sheridan climbed to her feet and aimed a punch at her jaw. She ducked, clubbed him over the side of the head with the butt of her gun, and he collapsed. Stars flashed before his eyes.

Janx and Hildra rushed forward, but they couldn’t fire, as they would all die here if they did; they needed Sheridan, she was right about that. Behind them, Layanna reached the egg and began crawling up it, toward its apex, searching for a spot that would accommodate her jaws. Sheridan fired at her again, but she was distracted by Janx thrusting his rifle butt at her face and missed.

Tense—the bullet hadn’t missed by much—Layanna swung around the far side of the egg, putting it between her and Sheridan.

The admiral swung the pistol toward Janx. Hildra dove into her. Tackled her to the ground. The two rolled about, kicking and gouging.

Layanna, just visible to Avery—he still lay on the floor, shaking off the blow—bit down savagely on the black flesh of egg. She ripped and tore at it for a moment before it spurted, then she put her mouth to the hole and sucked up the glowing fluid.

Sheridan staggered to her feet, Hildra dazed on the ground, bleeding from the ear. Janx came at his former captain, swinging his rifle like a club, not giving her time to aim, but she wove and kicked him in the side of the knee. He howled and collapsed. Not wasting the time it would take to shoot him, she navigated around his clutching hands, then moved about the egg, trying to get a bead on Layanna, and for a moment, to Avery, time stood still.

Leaking from around Layanna’s mouth, fluid cascaded down the sides of the egg, and Avery could see that it glowed much brighter than the nectar of the flowers. Of course, it wasn’t nectar at all, he realized. It was blood. The egg-thing was in all likelihood neither animal nor vegetable but some altogether different classification of entity, whether conscious or not he had no idea, that had grown in the epicenter of the fantastic energy of this place, perhaps deliberately, a beacon placed by the giants or the things that the giants had worshipped—the Ygrith, possibly—or perhaps a by-product that had grown around the object that Sheridan desired, if indeed that was the case.

None of that mattered now.

Picking himself up, Avery placed himself between Sheridan and Layanna, not giving the former a clear shot at the latter.

“Get out of my way,” Sheridan growled.

“Don’t you know what’s happening—what the R’loth mean to do?” he said. “The Starfish will destroy us all! How can you fight for that?”

Almost snarling, she stepped to the side, trying to get a clear angle, but he kept with her, continuing to block her.

“Damn you,” Sheridan said. “Those who die will die for a reason.”

“You’re insane!”

“You’re a fool.”

“THEN SHOOT ME!”

She cocked the gun, striding toward him. Her jaw bunched and unbunched. She drew her gun back to strike him with its butt like before, but he danced back, slashing blinding with the knife, simply trying to fend her off.

She scooped something off the floor—the grenade belt—ripped a pin out with her teeth and flung the belt onto the egg. It landed about a third of the way up.

Avery’s heart skipped a beat.

Layanna, seeing the grenades, sucked with renewed vigor.

Sheridan raised her gun to fire.

Avery threw himself before the muzzle of the gun, expecting a flash, searing pain, then blackness. Instead, Sheridan simply clubbed his head and sent him sprawling to the ground again. The realization that she would not shoot shocked him. Even with everything—everything—on the line, she wouldn’t kill him.

Exhausted, Layanna raised her face from the egg.

“Get clear!” Avery cried. “The grenades—”

She moved—

The egg exploded, showering them all with fluid and gore. The remains of the egg folded in on itself, fluid gushing out from it in great glowing streams, which they danced away from, and sagging to an unsightly green-black pile. The members of the group, all having gotten clear, if barely, looked at each other, panting and swearing—all save Sheridan.

Her attention had been occupied by something else. In the center of the pile of flesh that had been the egg shape, an object shone—not a glow, really, more a winking of metal.

“What the ... ?” Hildra started.

Sheridan strode over to it, through the wilted remains of the egg, shoving her gun away. She used two leaf-like sections of egg-skin to cover her hands, then, protected, hefted the object up; though coated in egg material, it seemed of a wholly different order, something made, not grown—some artifact of the race of giants or the beings they had worshipped. Sheridan didn’t seem surprised to see it. In fact, she seemed to have expected it. The object resembled two sheets of beaten brass joined by a short brass rod, but where a sheet should be flat, the two flat portions of the object were a web of raised and lowered surfaces, a complicated network of some unknown system.

“The Key,” Avery heard himself say.

“‘You must retrieve the Key’”, recited Hildra.

Sheridan grimaced at the artifact, obviously annoyed at its weight. It might have been built by beings much larger than humans, and though the Key must be tiny to them, it was quite large to her—almost four feet long, and not particularly light, to judge by the way she carried it.

“What do you mean to do with it?” Layanna said.

Sheridan shook off some of the gore from the Key, then said to Janx, “You. Carry this. Use something to protect your hands. I don’t know what contact will do to your flesh, but I don’t recommend taking a chance.”

He arched his eyebrows. “Why should I haul that fucker anywhere for you? Why are we even talking to you? We should be wringing your neck.”

“Do it for yourself,” Sheridan said. “Because I’m not leaving without that, and you need me to leave.”

“What do you want it for?” Avery said. “What exactly is it the key to?”

“Do I know everything? It looks like an interesting relic my superiors might have some interest in studying, that’s all.”

“Bullshit,” Hildra said. “You knew it was here.”

Sheridan marched over to Janx, just out of arms’ reach, and set the Key at his feet. Then, very slowly, she drew her gun.

“This isn’t up for a vote,” she said. “I can shoot any of you, but you can’t shoot me, and I will start shooting if I don’t get what I want.”

They didn’t move.

“How do we know you won’t shoot us anyway?” Layanna said. “You were trying to kill me, especially, only moments ago.”

Eyeing the Key, Sheridan said, “Things have changed. I now have this, and if I shot you your friends would most likely kill me, whether it be in their best interests or not.”

“And your superiors would not get the Key.” Confused, Layanna said, “It’s more important than stopping the Starfish?”