While he was busy getting Lucien's attention, a part of him was already on the move.
It did not break through the hull.
It found a seam.
A maintenance duct, barely wide enough for a maintenance drone, ran along the station's outer plating — a blind spot in the design, an afterthought in engineering. Francis pressed one tendril through it, no thicker than a wire. Then another. Then a dozen more, threading themselves through the gap with the patience of something that did not need to breathe.
That was the point.
He moved through the ductwork in silence, dispersing ahead of himself — not his body, but what lived inside it.
Invisible. Tasteless. Carried on circulated air the way a whisper rides a current. The station's ventilation system was a masterpiece of engineering: three redundant loops, a central exchange hub, emergency filtration for biological and chemical threats.
He released the parasites in a single, controlled push.
