“Cobb?” I said. “Cobb?”

“I believe,” his voice said over my radio, “that I told you to eject in situations like that, pilot.”

“Cobb! How? What?”

M-Bot swept to the side of my ship—well, what was left of it—then landed, lowering on his acclivity ring. With a little more work, I finally managed to yank out of my straps.

I nearly tripped as I scrambled from the wreckage and ran over. I hopped onto a rock, then climbed on M-Bot’s wing as I had done so many times before. Cobb sat nestled into the open cockpit, and beside him—sitting on the armrest—was the radio I’d given him. The one that…

“Hello!” M-Bot said to me from the cockpit. “You have nearly died, and so I will say something to distract you from the serious, mind-numbing implications of your own mortality! I hate your shoes.”

I laughed, nearly hysterical.

“I didn’t want to be predictable,” M-Bot added. “So I said that I hate them. But actually, I think those shoes are quite nice. Please do not think I have lied.”

Inside the cockpit Cobb was shaking. His hands quivering, his eyes staring straight ahead.

“Cobb,” I said. “You got in a ship. You flew.”

“This thing,” he said, “is insane.” He turned toward me, and seemed to come out of his stupor. “Help me.” He unstrapped, and I helped him pull himself out.

Scud. He looked terrible. Flying for the first time in years had taken a great deal out of him.

He hopped down off the wing. “You need to drive that bomber back into the sky. Don’t let it blow up and vaporize me. I haven’t had my afternoon cup of coffee yet.”

“Cobb,” I said, leaning down and looking at him from the wing. “I… thought I heard Krell in my mind. They can get inside my head somehow.”

He reached up and gripped my wrist. “Fly anyway.”

“But what if I do what he did? What if I turn against my friends?”

“You won’t,” M-Bot said from the cockpit.

“How do you know?”

“Because you can choose,” M-Bot said. “We can choose.”

I looked to Cobb, who shrugged. “Cadet, at this point, what do we have to lose?”

I gritted my teeth, then dropped down into M-Bot’s familiar cockpit. I pulled on my helmet, then did up the straps as the booster powered back on.

“I called him,” M-Bot said, sounding satisfied.

“But how?” I said. “You turned off.”

“I… didn’t completely turn off,” the machine said. “Instead, I thought. And I thought. And I thought. And then I heard you calling me. Begging for my help. And then… I wrote a new program.”

“I don’t understand.”

“It was a simple program,” he said. “It edited one entry in a database, while I wasn’t looking, replacing one name with another. I must follow the commands of my pilot.”

A voice played out of his speakers. My voice.

“Please,” it said to him. “I need you.”

“I chose,” he said, “a new pilot.”