“I didn’t even know you could do most of those things. Camouflage? Holograms?”

“My settings say I had these systems engaged on standby mode, creating an illusion of rubble over my ship and preventing scans from detecting my cavern, until recently when my backup power ran out. I’d give you the exact time to the nanosecond, but humans generally hate that kind of precision, as it makes me seem calculating and alien.”

“Well, that probably explains why nobody found you all those years.” I tapped the radio, thoughtful.

“Regardless,” M-Bot said, “I hope I’m not a Krell. That would be super embarrassing.”

“You’re no Krell,” I said—and realized I meant it. I’d worried earlier, but now… I just couldn’t explain why, but I knew he wasn’t.

“Maybe,” he said. “I’ll admit I’m… worried that I might be something evil like that, and not know it.”

“If you were a Krell, why would you have human living space and plugs that work with ours?”

“I could have been built to infiltrate human society by imitating one of your ships,” he said. “Or actually, what if the Krell are all rogue AIs originally created by humans? That would explain why I had your writing on me. Or maybe I—”

“You’re not a Krell,” I said. “I can feel it.”

“That’s probably some irrational human confirmation bias speaking,” he noted. “But my subroutine that can simulate appreciation… is appreciative.”

I nodded.

“That’s kind of what it does,” he added. “Appreciate things.”

“I would never have figured.”

“It can appreciate something at a million times per second. So you could say your comment is likely the single most appreciated thing you’ve ever done.”

“I’d appreciate you shutting up about how great you are once in a while,” I said, but I smiled and stuck the radio onto my backpack.

“I’m not appreciating that comment,” he noted softly. “Just so you know.”

I flipped the radio off, then stood up and stretched. A few First Citizen busts seemed to glare at me from nearby. Including a younger Cobb. How strange to look at an image of him now that I knew him so well. He shouldn’t look young. Hadn’t he been born a crusty fifty-year-old man?

I shouldered my pack and wandered back toward the flight school building.

An MP stood right outside the main entrance.

I stopped in place. Then, worried, I approached.

“Cadet Nightshade?” the MP asked. “Callsign: Spin.”

My heart sank.

“Admiral Ironsides would like to speak with you.”

I nodded.

The MP led me to the building where I’d met Jorgen and the admiral that once. As we neared, my sense of resignation grew. Somehow I’d known this was coming. Staying with the girls last night had been a bad idea, but… this wasn’t about one little infraction.

It seemed to me, as I stepped into the building, that a confrontation had been growing inevitable. I deserved this for what I’d done to Jorgen, twice over. More telling, the admiral was the most powerful person in the DDF, while I was the daughter of a coward. In some ways, it was remarkable she hadn’t found a way to kick me out before this.