“Not yet, but they will soon enough.” The lights spread out.

“Good.”

“Good?” she asked, shocked.

“You mentioned a com implant,” said Aptat. “What is it?”

“Pangemic standard local receiver, the minimum.”

“Can you send a chirp?”

“Vortu will hear it,” said Naecia.

“I have to be able to access your com if I’m going to occupy the carapace.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The suit’s vault has a calibration link that I use to adjust its tolerances. I am going to broadcast myself to your com and see if the suit responds.”

“I don’t need anyone else in my head.”

“I won’t be in your mind. I’ll only be using your com to transmit my neural signature. I have to be inside the carapace for it to have any augmented functionality.”

“You’re going to broadcast your brain waves from inside my brain in order to talk to your suit.”

“Exactly!”

“Great.”

“Chirp to pair the systems, Naecia.”

“But the Vortu.”

“This will give us weapons.”

“Fine.” She bit lightly down on the inside of each cheek simultaneously, firing a single chirp from the com hub sitting on the surface of her auditory cortex.

The light beams atop the hull immediately swung in her direction.

“They heard it, Aptat,” she said, trying to crawl around the perimeter to put some distance between them.

“I’m in,” said Aptat.

The voice was now coming from inside her brain instead of the helmet. Yay.

“I’m playing hide and seek,” said Naecia. “What can you do?”

“I’ve got your location and the visor’s visual feed. Do you have power augment?”

She hadn’t noticed any difference, but she also hadn’t done anything that had necessitated exertion in the last few seconds. “Hold on.” She reached over to a bit of redundant pipe bracket and snapped it like a stick of jha spice. “Wow, okay. Augments work.”

“That’s good. Vortu don’t have power armor.”

Naecia had rounded the fore side of the Silent Child along the deck line. The lights were following. “They’re coming up, Aptat.”

“You’re faster than they are now, and you know the schematics. Use those advantages to evade them. I’m trying to get the melee limb to talk to me.”

Naecia rounded the front of the craft, trusting the armor to help her jump obstacles and scale larger equipment. She still had to work to move, but it was like having another person contributing their strength to hers, halving her effort. She glanced up the arc. Predictably, the Vortu had split from each other, figuring to pinch her from the sides and neutralizing her speed advantage. It would only hasten her capture now. “You should hurry up, I’m out of space to move.” She turned up the hull between the two groups closing in from either side. Sparks erupted all around as she went. “They’re shooting.”