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the alien that had killed Hobbs wasn’t going to get any more of them. They were still more than ten light seconds away from the Mars Skyhook, almost two million miles, clearing the Bussey Cluster with a cruise-ship-sized chunk of nickel-iron on the pusher, and nobody was anywhere near close enough to help them.
    “All right,” Captain Gridley said, “here’s how it is going to be. Everybody is armed at all times. Nobody goes anywhere alone. We stay together constantly, no exceptions. If you hear a funny noise, you don’t go to check it out, we all go. If you are hungry, we will all go to the galley and have a snack. We sleep in shifts, and you will have a blaster under your pillow. If you see the alien, you shoot it first and tell the rest of us later. If you see somebody start shooting, you aim your weapon in the same general direction and you cook, too.”
    He paused to let that sink in, then continued. “We aren’t going to go into the air duct system looking for this thing, nor are we going to roam around in the storage areas where the lighting is dim. If it wants us, it is going to have to come and get us and we will make it cross empty space to do it. No matter how tough its skin is, it can’t withstand the fire of seven blasters hitting it at once. If we see it—when we see it—we kill it. If it is the last of its kind, too bad—it should have thought of that before.”
    He paused again, making eye contact with each individual member of his crew. “This, people, is how you stay alive when faced with this kind of threat—you’ve all seen idiot-plot movies and you ought to know by now that the first rule is: You don’t do anything stupid so the monster has a chance to get you. Any questions?”
    There weren’t any.
    Jay grinned. In the real world, he was in Quantico, Virginia, at Net Force HQ, initiating a virus protection program with half a dozen sub-routines, wired and taped and shrouded in VR gear, running cutting-edge software on the latest hardware. Here in virtual reality, he was on a space tug, protecting it from a nasty alien monster, which was definitely a lot more fun.
    Most people didn’t realize that specialized computer hacking was normally about as exciting as watching grass grow. With the advent of VR, you could kick that up a bunch of notches, and improve your own effectiveness in the process.
    Not that he needed much help in the effectiveness department. The truth was that most computer criminals weren’t all that bright, and so far, none of them had been brighter than Jay Gridley, who sat atop Net Force’s electronic food chain. This particular virus was only a threat to people who didn’t know how to deal with it, and Jay could take care of the beast with one hand tied behind him and one eye closed. . . .
    “Jay?”

Net Force HQ
Quantico, Virginia
    The com override cut into the scenario. Only a few people could do that—his boss, his ex-boss and his ex-boss’s wife, and Jay’s wife. And the voice was that of Saji, his spouse and mother of Mark Jefferson Gridley, the world’s most beautiful baby.
    Jay killed the scenario. “Hey, babe. What’s up?”
    “Your son just laughed at me.”
    “Really?”
    “I know he’s not supposed to be doing that at two months, but he did. He smiled and he laughed!”
    Jay smiled, too. “The boy is a genius, no question about it. He takes after his father, obviously.”
    “I’ll let you get back to work,” Saji said. “I just wanted you to know.”
    “Thanks, sweetie. I’m almost done here. I’ll be home in a couple hours.”
    “I love you,” she said.
    “Me, too, you.”
    After she discommed, Jay smiled again. He did that a lot lately. Being a husband and a father had not even been on his horizon a few years back, and it was a big change, but it was so much more than he had ever thought it could be.
    He was about to restart the VR scenario, when the com lit again.
    It was Commander Thorn.
    “Jay?”
    “Right here.”
    “Come