DONT LET THEM TOUCH YOU

The pale shell lurches forward a step, then another.

We aim the blade-tip at its chest. “Hold it there,” I send, across every channel. “Stay right where you are.”

It launches itself at us. We skip clear of a grasping hand, knock it away when it suddenly changes direction, rounding on us. We land a jab to its open ribs and a hammerblow across its chest, feel steel giving way beneath our fist, and the machine spins away across the deck, but it lands flat on its feet, jerking around to follow us. It skips forward and aims a punch for our throat, turns the motion into a swipe, claws for our eyes with a fistful of twitching fingers. We catch the grip, watch the fingers squirm just a metre from our face, then turn it back, deflect the next blow on the edge of our blade. It staggers under the force our guard, and we hunt it with the sword.

It drops clear of a thrust, folds itself over at the hips to duck a cut, and rolls away when we bring the blade down and bury it in the deck.

The Decatur stops dead, half a hangar away. Just out of reach.

It doesn’t have eyes, but we can feel it watching us.

I’ve fought every kind of shell—machines with jockeys inside, hollows without, battlefield automata flying alongside human crews—but I’ve never seen anything move like this.

We hold our guard and watch the machine tick and stutter. It’s ruined, taken the kind of damage that would’ve sunk any three other shells. It misplaces a step, over-compensating as its joints skip and jerk and judder. It looks like it’s having a seizure.

It loses power to its knees and drops awkwardly to its haunches. Its arm lies limp on the floor. The Juno and I circle, inch our way closer.

A mistake.

The pale shell burns hot and sudden, hurls itself into the air so hard it spins out of control. We track it, try to skip out of the way, but it’s too fast.

We look up and its hand closes down on us.

My eyes go dark.

00.00

I WAKE UP in the black, suddenly numb and blind and empty.

My reactor is cold.

No, not cold. I can’t feel it.

My little sun has been replaced with a dull, broken throbbing in my chest. I am slow, every motion half a second behind where it ought to be. I am weak, massive fists traded out for spindly things that barely deserve the name. I have to work just to keep myself sitting upright in the saddle. How am I supposed to fight when this is all I have?

I blink, but the darkness clings to me. There’s a flash of panic. I force myself to breathe. I have been here before, I know that for certain, but it feels like it was a very long time ago. It’s wrapped up in the memory of steel: meat and bone and water hidden somewhere deep inside. I shouldn’t be like this. Not now.