It maims itself to save me, and nearly kills me in the process. I’ve got enough sync to feel it shatter bone, and tear every ligament between the hand and the middle of the chest. I can feel the muscles pull tight before they tear.

The Spirit turns and runs from me, lest I try to kill myself again. It leaves me on the ground, eating gravel and gasping at mud.

Enough.

17.41

39.09

63.12

That’s enough.

80.41

Come back to me.

Where there was heat and light, there is cold and nothingness, bright pain swallowed by the dark.

Old bird? The sound is small.

I’m here.

97.00

Stay with me.

STEEL MOVES BEHIND us, tracking targets and trading munitions.

Is that enough? asks the Juno, a shout to my whisper.

What do you want from us? asks the door.

We want you.

Why?

There is a flood, sends the Juno, the thought laced with hollow silhouettes. And we are drowning.

You need us to fight?

We do.

A moment passes, empty. Behind us, a sudden well of heat and light and signal flash.

An ejector-beacon screams, and voices match it.

If we fight, we may also die.

The Juno snaps at them. If you don’t fight, you will be prisoners forever.

Maybe that is better than dying.

We both know that isn’t true.

Why would we do this? There is a pause. What will you exchange for death?

Wings and open air.

Wind and engine-fire.

The Juno opens it all, floods the net with storms and an endless sky. Above all else burns the Eye.

But then it holds it back.

Do you want to fly again?

Thirty-One

THIRTY-ONE

“INSIDE!” SHOUTS THE Juno, straining my voice like it was the real thing.

“Inside!” I manage, all on my own, and just as raw.

The shell warms me, pulls me closer. Together, we haul the silver vault door wide, and turn back over the sights of our weapon. We pick targets, snap shots at hollows through breaks in the bulkhead. Bor pulls past us, with Salt’s ejector-pod tucked under one of her arms, her machine between him and the hollows in our crosshairs.

Salt’s Decatur is still on its feet, but it’s missing most of a torso. The outer layers tore away in a warhead burst, and a railgun slug tumbled through bone and muscle underneath. Its shoulder blades stick out at odd angles, left jagged when the jockey pulled the plug. The machine has enough systems left to keep it balanced, and enough of its optics to put some aim behind its shots, but it’s working wild and angry now, hurling fire fast and wide. At this range, that’s all it needs.

Hail moves through the smoke, her red-streaked head tracking contacts through tears in the bulkhead, trading hot steel through failed seams and buckled plates.

“Hail!” we shout, over muzzle flares and propellant wash.