It happened before I realised it. I think it was the strain.

Even with the shell doing most of the work, we had to hold ourselves steady in the lee of Salt’s machine, and thread the same needle three times in a row. After that, after VINE, the Stone, and the insanity that glows at us from behind the storms, exhaustion took me. I dropped off and didn’t even know it.

I’m asleep, but that doesn’t mean I’m not awake. The first I knew that anything had happened, it was Hail on the line, checking in on me. I went to speak, but nothing happened. Not from the part of me that usually does the speaking.

The Juno toned my voice, took records from all the times I’ve spoken before, and shaped the samples around the words I meant to say. It happens often enough, just never to me. Some jockeys need full immersion, need to feel themselves being a machine to keep their numbers up. It’s hard to feel like steel when you’re flapping meat and moisture around inside your mouth.

I’ve never had trouble with disconnection, but there have been times when I’ve yelled myself raw across the net, or just needed a moment in the quiet, so I didn’t think anything of it. Not just then.

We had a few days of flying ahead, and I figured I needed the hours, so I started rolling the shell into automatic, trimming the pilot-sync.

And everything went dark.

For a second, I thought I’d hit gee hard enough to suck all the blood from my skull, struck a wall of windshear I didn’t see coming.

I tensed, tried to breathe, worked my way through the exercises to keep my brain from running out of juice.

The Juno pulled me back before the panic set in, ramped our numbers past the limiters in a flash. It took me in, kept me high and dry while I found my senses again. Then it turned me around and showed me the inside of our cockpit.

My body was where I left it; propped up by my flight suit, artificial muscle keeping it steady in the saddle, cockpit systems making up for all the little things you do to keep yourself alive.

I can feel it there still, fast asleep, kept warm by the skin of the suit and the cockpit’s air supply. It breathes as fibres flex around it and work the lungs inside. I can hear the heartbeat, slow and steady and so very far away.

I can’t sleep and I can’t breathe, but I don’t have to.

I get to fly.