Even buckled in securely, Rik’s stomach took offense at the flip and he would’ve thrown up their last meal, but System Six intervened. His host was disgusting enough on the inside; no need to put it out there for all the world to see. System Six suppressed the gagging brutally and strained all of their senses to figure out what was going on. Looked like the technical staff had finally bypassed the ill-conceived changes and regained a measure of control. Too late to avoid a crash, probably, but somehow they’d managed to spin the ship, righting them so the emergency brakes would actually slow them down instead of merely adding that final dramatic touch to their demise.

They still hit the ground at critical velocity.

IT WAS dark when System Six and his host regained consciousness. Quiet.

The only sounds around them were the creak of deformed metal settling and straining, the raspy breathing of the other survivors, and the drip of fluid somewhere close by.

What happened? Rik thought, and System Six had to deliberate for a moment to come up with a non-offensive answer. He was still tied to Rik, still needed him to survive; he couldn’t risk offending Rik or tipping him off as to his armor’s mutinous disposition.

It appears we crashed, he offered finally.

“But why?” Rik whined, fumbling for the buckles of the safety harness. “Jas?” he asked out loud, his voice shaking. “Cen? You there?”

Someone groaned; then, one by one, they reported in, unstrapped themselves, and regrouped near the exit of their quarters. Outside, emergency lights were flickering weakly, offering just enough illumination for them to comb the tilted, warped rooms and corridors for other survivors.

There weren’t many. The tech crew had saved their lives by flipping the ship and engaging the tail thrusters at the last second, but that meant the

rear section had taken the brunt of the impact. The doors had been sealed; there’d been nowhere to go and the techs had known it. They had sacrificed themselves to give the rest of the crew a fighting chance. System Six hadn’t been created to feel guilt, but he knew no other name for the uncomfortable emotion nagging at him when he realized that despite the techs’ efforts, most of the crew had perished anyway in his badly executed bid for time.

The four soldiers and their armor systems stared at the mangled, partly melted mess of metal that had once been the heart of the ship. They didn’t need to share the results of their mental calculations. Nobody could’ve survived in there, not even the two armor carriers that had last been seen headed that way. The entire back end had been destroyed, including the engine room, sleeping quarters, and parts of the science and medical areas. It was a miracle the crash hadn’t engaged the self-destruction protocols or directly activated the doomsday glands within the walls that would’ve turned the entire ship into a pool of acidic sludge.