We turn to see her machine stumbling, ankle caught in the grip of a Mirai. Caught in a moment’s error, a value-drift in our predictions, right on the edge of the future we could see. One last hollow.

Don’t let them touch you.

Salt’s Juno draws on them both, works its weapon, and fuses the Mirai’s skull to the deckplates with a lance from its rail. The Cluster closes from either side, hands wide and thrusters blaring.

“Run!” shouts Hail. “Rook!” Her Decatur draws level, the rails the only thing steady as the pale shell ticks and shivers around her. “RUN!”

But we take too long to understand.

Her weapon flickers. We hear an impact, but don’t feel a hit.

The Cluster machines tackle Hail’s hollow Decatur all at once, take it down with fists and solid mass. Somewhere between them, we see ejector-charges wake around the edges of her hull. The Junos pry through every plate as it fails. One hauls her pod clear with its bare hands, while the others shatter her twitching, shrieking shell against the deck.

Something runs hot across our saddle. Iron and saline.

THE OBSERVER IS dead. We have the flood in chains.

92.99

And Hail is still alive. Still ours. She made it out in time.

88.14

We have won.

61.71

What’s happening?

58.38

No, says another part of me. Don’t look.

Instinct moves our optics, turns them down along our hull.

51.31

Don’t look.

But I can’t stop. I can’t stop the hand running over our ruined plating, reaching for the tiny hole in the middle of our chest.

44.09

There used to be an ugly silver weld, right there. Right in the middle of our chest. A railgun wound from sometime long ago, plugged but never painted over. Fixed, but never fully healed. The empty space I tried to fill.

No. Don’t look.

31.93

But now there is a hole.

Here.

I trace a finger around the edge, feel the little ring of carbon where impact scorched our paint, and the little silver edge where our plating failed again.

Right above our cockpit.

Don’t look.

26.03

I’m losing control. A hand moves without me, and presses itself against the breach.

Stay here.

Stay here with me.

12.45

Don’t look.

09.13

Stay here.

04.11

Please.

2.86

Stay

01.05

with

00.43

me.

100.00

Acknowledgements

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS