I run through all the overrides I can reach. When they aren’t enough, I bring the Juno in. Together, we overwhelm the little mind that manages the suit systems. It complains, warns me that NorCol will get a log of everything we’ve done, but the threat is empty. Juno’s trimming the file as fast as it gets written.

We force it to do exactly what we tell it to—make it respond to every tick and twitch and shiver as if I meant them. The Juno helps me steer the thing, helps me walk it around the cockpit and collect my service weapon from its holster.

The painkillers kick in, leave me feeling a little less like I’ve actually died, and a little more like I’m still bleeding out. I teeter on the edge of my little lock, and feel the brush of something else, weight and half-heard sounds.

Don’t do anything stupid.

More stupid, you mean.

I wait while the cockpit cycles air, splits the seals on the operator’s lock. Hail is waiting just below us, right where the narrow ladder unrolls and hits the dust.

“Still alive?”

I don’t try to speak, not yet. I keep my visor angled so she can’t see in. “Only just,” says a recording.

She hands over her little silver case, but holds tight for a second before I pull away. “Look after it.”

“You know I will,” says the Juno.

I carry it back inside the cockpit and connect the Spirit’s mind-state to our reactor grid. The case has batteries of its own, but they aren’t meant to last forever. Hell, they aren’t made to last more than a couple of days, and without power, the mind inside will die. The Juno doesn’t have room to share its thoughts, but the Spirit probably wouldn’t understand them anyway, so we give the ghost of the newer shell a sandbox to itself, and enough space to help us with calculations as we go.

“It’s locked—” I say, out loud, but I’m not thinking. My throat seizes, turns the sound into gravel. The Juno saves me.

It plays the sound of me clearing my throat, followed by a “Sorry.” Then it starts again, translating my thoughts into something Hail can hear. “It’s locked down, Hail. Mind-state checksums are green. Still alive and all intact.”

“Thank you.”

She can’t hide the relief in her voice. There’s a pause, and then the offer of a small network, jockey-to-jockey.

“Shall we go for a walk?”