“Holding fire,” growls Salt, just so Hail’s sure that it’s the last thing he wants to do.

“As you were,” comes the reply from Hail, silky smooth and cool to the touch. She slows, lets the thing creep closer. “Hybrid exoskeleton. Marine-issue, by the look of it.”

“Minus the marine,” I observe.

It stops short, raises itself on its elbows as if it can hear me. There’s a harness in the middle of it, dragging silver buckles along the floor. Put a grunt in there, and the exo’ll mould itself around them, give them muscle enough to tear through bulkheads, bodies, and hostile machinery. They’re rare, though: almost as frail as infantry, but many times more expensive. Still, you’d rather not bump into one if you didn’t have armour of your own.

On its own, though, an exo’s clutter. They need an operator with an extra wetware loop and a bundle of company codes.

Salt adds an extra cone of light from his helmet, and gives us a look at the exo’s legs, dragging limply along the floor. “Something cut through the armour, all the way to the spine.”

“At least we know how the hollows managed to fit down here,” I say. They don’t reply for a moment. “What? This place is too narrow for shells—”

“And all of Sigurd’s crew are dead?” asks Hail. “We don’t know that.”

Salt clears his throat. “No one throws themselves into the grinder like this. You saw what happened outside, those dead shells. Human crews would’ve beat a retreat long before they wasted themselves like that.”

Her shoulders slump, but only by a hair. I hear her sigh. “I suppose this is hollow ground.”

The exo twitches, tasting the air.

Hail straightens, waves us back. “Keep clear. If an exo can catch it, our flight suits can too.” She signals for Salt. “Kill it.”

We’d walk past it if we could, but the passage isn’t wide enough. The exo’ll never walk again, but we don’t know how fast it can move on its hands, or how many of its integral weapons still work.

Salt inches forward and it responds to the movement, dragging itself around to face him.

I don’t see what happens next. Hail and I look away to protect our eyes from his muzzle, and watch for anything that might take the flash as an invitation. Two shots, bright and sudden, and the exo spins away from of us, trailing dark fluid and chunks of plating. We watch for a response, watch the thing shiver and die in front of us, but it looks like we’re alone, at least for now. Hail gets us moving again at a jog, with headlamps set wide and bright.

“Contact,” says Salt, and we drop to a walk. “Never mind,” he manages, a moment later.

Another metal skeleton, dead already.