THE CREATURE THAT LOOKED like Loba reached out with its mind as it strode through the ship in the direction of the shuttle bay. It had arrived at the defense unit storage room too late. The human called Harrington and the ones who had disobeyed its order to go to the shuttle bay, Lingiari and Lee, they had taken the units. The creature could no longer communicate with them through the ship’s system—a serious impediment to its plan. The defense equipment items were far superior in skill and strength than their human controllers. They had proven extremely useful, and the creature had anticipated using them for several more tasks in the suppression and replication of the remaining humans. But though the alien had made a grievous miscalculation in not accompanying the others to retrieve the un
