Inside the dim room, the alien body is stretched across the floor widthwise. A square box takes up most of the remaining space. As I draw near it, I estimate the dimensions at almost eight feet square and three feet high off the ground. It looks like a huge metal control box or a weapons locker with one glass lid raised open and another closed but shattered, shards everywhere inside. As me and Apollo stand next to Captain Grey, I realize it's neither.

I jerk back. My hand flies to cover my mouth, but it hits my faceplate instead. "That's a... another... Kry."

"Judging by its height, about seven-feet tall." Apollo leans over the alien body, staring down at it. "Black armor. Dark helmet and visor. Seven-fingered hands and long sharp claws, I'd say it's another Kry."

"Another dead one," Captain Grey says. "See the gash on its chest that's as wide as my blade? I killed it first. That's why the other one woke up. By my estimation, these are hibernation chambers."

"Did you take its helmet off to look at its face?" I ask.

"I couldn't get it loose. It has some sort of locking mechanism I couldn't figure out. As I was fiddling with it, the other one woke up. I should have killed it before it became conscious, but I wasn't expecting the wake process to happen so fast."

"Have you seen any more of them?" Apollo's tone hints he hopes there aren't more.

"So far, these are the only two." She points her knife at the side of the box, at the glowing display screen that's lit up with odd shapes and slashes... possibly an alien language or numbering system. "They may be the only ones here. My theory is that these Kry soldiers, or scientists or whatever they were, awaken periodically to monitor the station's operations. Who knows how long they've been here? Maybe as long as the station itself. Who knows how long they slept? Days, weeks, years, decades, longer?

"They were probably on alternating shifts. Apparently, they were asleep when the battle was taking place. They may have woken up, noticed that Kiera had discovered the station when she violated flight protocol, put in the order to increase the number of starfighters, figured we wouldn't dare venture into space again and attack them. They went back to sleep. Underestimated us. That's why they got a knife stuck in their chests. Their pressure suits aren't battle armor like it appears." She peers at the blade and the black ooze. After staring at it for several seconds, she cleans the blade on the edge of the sleep chamber and returns it to a sheath on her waist. "I have one more thing I need to do."

"Wait," I say. "I've come this far... we've come this far. I want to know what's behind the helmet visor."

"We don't have time, Kiera." Captain Grey glances sidelong at me.

"She's right," Apollo says.

"Of course, I am."

"I meant Kiera is right."

"What?"

"If the butt end of your knife broke the glass lid of that sleep chamber, I bet it would crack a faceplate." Apollo doesn't blink or budge.

"Let me do it," I say. "Give me your knife."

Captain Grey wags her head but hands me the blade. "Hurry. Every second we waste is a second something could go wrong."

I peer down at the dead alien inside the sleep unit, gripping the knife handle. After a deep breath, I aim the blunt end toward its faceplate. Apollo and the captain hover behind me, peeking over my shoulders. They want to see what a Kry looks like as much as I do.

I raise my arm and hesitate, considering this the moment of truth. Then without further delay, I smash the knife handle into the dark visor. Spiderweb cracks appear, but the faceplate remains intact. I slam the handle down again and again. I won't be denied.

Finally, it shatters, and broken shards fall inside the helmet.

Careful not to cut myself, I remove the bigger pieces and rake the smaller ones away, revealing the alien's face.

Or lack thereof.

A flat-faced, pale head fills the inside of the helmet with a huge, oval black eye. There's no nose or mouth, or any other familiar features. Dark lines run beneath its skin like veins. Its appearance turns my stomach. It's the most alien thing I've ever seen. Its body may be humanoid, but its head is the farthest thing from it.

"Let me see the knife," Captain Grey says. I pass it to her and back away as she leans over the soldier. She pierces the alien's pale skin with the tip of the blade. It seems the face, if you can call it that, is made of rubber. "I think it's synthetic." She glances back at me.

She jabs the knife into the eye and plucks it out. The black orb appears as hard as a diamond, like a lens, connected to the socket with wiry fibers.

"What are you saying?" A wave of disbelief washes over me.

The captain drives the blade beneath the skin, penetrating one vein, causing black liquid to ooze out. It's like the liquid that flowed out when she stabbed it in the chest.

"I don't think it's alive," she says. "I mean, I don't think it was ever alive. It seems to have a synthetic body that houses artificial intelligence of some kind. She rams the blade into the head and pries it open. Inside, she discovers a fibrous network of wires that connects to a central translucent sphere, like a cyber-brain. "These may not be sleep chambers. The pods could be charging stations or something else we don't understand. The real Kry could have created these soldiers to do their dirty work. We may not know what they really look like until we reach Earth."

"This is just messed up," I say.

Apollo agrees.

"We've wasted enough time." Captain Grey moves across the room. "There's something I have to do."

I watch her work, despondent, still reeling from our most recent discovery. She removes a metal cylinder from a side compartment on her suit. It tapers down to a point at one end. I wonder what it is and what she plans to do with it.

At the back of the room, she steps up to a dark, waist-high surface and waves her hand over a square of black glass. Based on what I can tell, the slanted surface is a control station. The glass flickers to life and blooms into a holographic image showing a series of tabs and mysterious hieroglyphic writing, similar to what we saw on the side of the sleep chambers or charging pods. Whatever they are. Captain Grey doesn't bother with the hologram, but locates what appears to be a data port on the slanted countertop.

"It's a memory stick. Sort of," she says. "It can hold trillions of terabytes of information. Think of my bookcase in my office. This device can hold a trillion bookcases of information, and it can download it in a matter of seconds. It doesn't need any type of format. It's universal and simply stores data. And it can pull it from anything. The military has been using and developing them for years. It started on Earth; our scientists and engineers trying to interface with Kry technology. Fast forward to today. We've salvaged nothing worthwhile from their burned-up A-Wings, but when you discovered their space station, Kiera, we knew we needed to take advantage of it if we could."

She activates a tiny button on the side of the cylinder. The narrow end spins, the point spreading apart and separating into metallic tendrils. As she positions the device over the data port, the silvery ends seem to sense the shape they need to conform to.

"The end is flexible, adjusting to the contours of the port." She lowers the spinning tendrils, and they slither inside and lock into place. A red light blinks on top of the memory stick. The captain glances back at me and Apollo and offers us a quick half-grin as she waits for whatever alien info we can download to transfer to the device. In less than a minute, the red light changes to solid green. "I don't know what we siphoned off their systems, but it'll keep our computer scientists busy for years. Who knows? It might help us find their weaknesses."

She returns the memory stick to the compartment in her suit.

"We need to go." Captain Grey jerks her head toward the exit. "These two won't wake up, but they're not my greatest concern right now. Come on."

As we turn to go, at the base of the Kry sleep chamber, I notice a large compartment door standing half open. I had been so preoccupied with fighting the Kry soldier and staring at the other dead one that I failed to see it ajar.

"What's in there?" I ask.

"Nothing." My mother kicks the door closed. "Just storage space. It's empty. Let's go."

When she turns to leave the room, me and Apollo follow in her wake. I have no desire to stay in there with the dead soldiers, cyborgs, whatever they are. I know they're dead—at least I hope they are—but I don't want to take a chance. Thankfully, when we exit the room, the doors close behind us.

Seeing the synthetic Kry soldiers makes me want to investigate what's going on in the bay. What activities did those things monitor? We duck and crawl up to the wall to get a better look down below.

As I peek over the top of the metal half wall, through the transparent upper portion, what I see is not entirely what I thought I'd see. But who am I kidding? Nothing in this place has been anything close to what I expected.

A few of the drones have weapons, but most of them don't. Clearly, what I'm seeing are worker drones and their guard counterparts, like the dead ones we had seen in the outer corridor.

"There doesn't seem to be any more Kry soldiers here." Captain Grey keeps her voice low, stating the obvious. "I haven't seen any more yet, and I've been much deeper into this thing than you two. The first time I passed through this corridor, I must have skimmed by without triggering the sensor for the auto doors in the wall behind us. But on the way back, I set it off, and that's when I found the control room with the Kry inside. On the other side of the next drone hatch, the passage opens up to the bay that we're looking at. It's catwalks and pipes and lots of buzzing noises. You can hear the drones working."

"What we're seeing here seems to suggest that the entire place is pretty much run by drones," Apollo says. "Is that what I think it is out there?"

It wasn't as obvious to begin with, but as the drone construction takes shape, it doesn't take long for me to realize what's going on in this space station. Inside a wide and cavernous bay where all the activity takes place, lined up from one side to the other, worker drones zip here and there, buzzing around, tightening nuts and bolts and welding seams. Other robots use overhead cranes to lower sleek rocket engines into place, followed by sophisticated dash displays and control systems, fastening them within a metal A-frame, which has yet to be covered by its outer hull.

On the other side of the bay, a hovering guard drone swivels toward us, barrels protruding from its sphere body. We duck out of sight.

I hold my breath, hoping it didn't see us, waiting... When nothing happens after several excruciating seconds, which seem to last forever, I exhale a sigh of relief.

I jab a finger toward the window above my head. "They're building starfighters in there."

"Why did the two of you enter the station?" Captain Grey shoots eye-daggers at me and Apollo. "You should never have come here."

"We're here, sir," Apollo says, "because whatever objective you set out to do has taken you far longer than expected. The admiral agreed that you should have already returned, but you hadn't. And we had no way of communicating with you."

"I know comms are dead, but I didn't think I'd been delayed that long."

"Long enough to raise concern."

"Fair enough." Captain Grey sighs. "Listen. I suspect it's only a matter of time before more drones will be on the way. I think we should go."

My gaze narrows. "I still don't understand why it had to be you. Why did the admiral pick you as the one to risk your life?"

"Don't you see what's happening here?" the captain says. "You nailed it, Kiera. This entire space station is nothing more than a starfighter manufacturing machine. Based on my observations, there's an assembly line from start to finish. They must send the raw materials from Earth for the automated process to make the ships. That's why they send only so many ships to attack us at any given time. That's why they hadn't attacked us since you discovered their station and they shot you down. They were busy building more starfighters to attack our airbase with an overwhelming force, or stockpiling them to defend their station. I suspect they intended to attack us on the ground first, but we beat them to it."

"How are they flying the ships?" Apollo asks.

"Yeah," I say. "Where are their pilots?"

"They don't have any here," Captain Grey replies.

"Are they flying the ships remotely? From Earth?"

"I don't think so."

"Then how?" I ask.

"Artificial intelligence, I suspect." Captain Grey keeps her voice low. "That's my best guess. Apparently, the AI isn't as good at flying as we are. That's why they needed to outnumber us three to one. They killed a lot of us tonight, but we killed a lot more of them."

"That's why I didn't find a pilot in the ship's cockpit. The one I shot up. There wasn't one."

"And the production line can only build so many ships at a time." Apollo furrows his brow. "That's why they haven't sent any more fighters to attack us. They haven't had time to make them yet."

I stare at the captain, my mother, perplexed yet amazed at what she's capable of. Staying low, she motions for us to head back the way we came. We've seen enough, but what the MDF plans on doing about what we've discovered, I don't know.

There's a metallic clank on the other side of the hatch behind Captain Grey. The hatch itself didn't open, but something made a noise on the other side of the passage. Maybe the guard drone had spotted us earlier, or maybe it was something unrelated. We could have triggered an alarm or something.

"Time to go," Captain Grey says.

I shuffle through the hatch we had come through. Apollo follows me out, and then the captain crawls through and tumbles to the floor, but springs to her feet with only a grunt. In the next short hall without windows, we rush toward the other hatchway and hustle back out into the main corridor, which lies on the other side of the wide hangar door. This time, the captain puts a leg through first and then drops down. She seems preoccupied, as if something is bothering her.

We don't waste any time hurrying down the curving slope, panting. As we go, I'm thankful my suit had adjusted to the Earth-like gravity in this place. Living on Mars all my life didn't prepare me for this, despite the serum our doctors administered to us and no matter how much I trained in Flight School.

Before we leave the wide hangar door behind, I glance back as a drone shoots through a hatchway. On the other side of the corridor, another one jets through and races after us.

Captain Grey skids to a stop and pivots, turning back. One-handed, she draws her energy blaster, takes aim, and fires. She nails the guard drone in the center of its sphere body with a supercharged ball of electricity. The drone crashes to the floor and bounces, banging off the wall before coming to a halt further down the corridor.

The other drone opens fire, tiny orange plasma bullets whizzing by us. With plasma, a skimming hit can puncture our suits, causing depressurization. Or a full-on hit can blow through and turn a body part to mush.

Having lost ground with us, Captain Grey waves us onward. "Go! Don't stop."

Before we lose sight of her on the downward slope, she turns and fires again. I don't know if she struck the second drone, but I hear metal clanking and thudding, probably the sphere striking the runway. As we reach Apollo and the captain's starfighters, I can no longer see her or the guard drones.

Her energy blaster discharges several rounds, reverberating down the corridor. There are also the distinct sounds of plasma bullets pelting the walls and floor. Before long, the firing ceases, and I wonder who won the firefight.

Soon, she reappears, headed our way.

So many times, I struggle with what to call her. Captain Grey, my captain mother, or just... mother. Or perhaps, Mom. That's the word that resonates with me now. That's progress.

When she reaches us, she bends over at the waist, panting, holding up her hand to us. "Take this." She places the memory stick in my hand, the one with all the files she downloaded from the Kry computer system. "Put it in your side compartment. It'll fit. Don't lose it. Protect it with your life. It'll add to everything we know about the Kry, and it may be crucial to taking back Earth."

"Why are you giving it to me?" I ask. "You can carry it."

"Just do it!" Her jawline hardens, peering up at me. She seems gassed after being chased by the drones.

I do what she says without further question, sliding the cylinder into the side compartment in my suit.

The captain, my mom, still bent over, removes another cylinder from a compartment on the other side of her suit. It's about the same size as the memory stick.

"What's that?" I ask.

"A detonator," she says.

It takes a long moment for what she said to sink in. "A what?"

Apollo puts a hand on my shoulder, his touch making me glare at him. His eyes are ablaze, his jaw clenched. He doesn't breathe a word, only stares at me, his gaze conveying the seriousness of the moment. The detonator must be part of the captain's secret objective.

"We don't have long." Captain Grey straightens, clutching her side, still gasping. "More drones are sure to come soon. The plan was to nuke this place... remotely. But the interference won't allow it. The station blocks any signal, whether it comes from inside or out."

"Why not just fire a nuke from a starfighter?" Apollo blinks. "Blow it that way."

I stare at my mom, sensing something is wrong.

"We wanted intel first. We had to board the station." The captain winces, her words strained, spoken with great effort. "And we wouldn't have been able to fire it until we destroyed all the enemy ships, anyway. They'd just shoot it down before it reached its target." She collapses to a knee, her neck bent, head down. Her energy blaster drops to the floor with a clatter. She looks up.

"Did you get shot?" I drop to my knees in front of her.

With a deep groan, she lifts her hand from her stomach to reveal a fist-sized partly cauterized hole in her suit, air hissing through mangled slits. She covers the puncture again, stemming the leakage, but not forming a perfect seal. From her tentative eyes and tightly pressed lips, I get the impression she's suffering from something much worse than a compromised suit.

A dreadful chill sweeps over me, and I feel weak, like I'm about to pitch forward and faint.