Every soldier on Monkglass has assembled to meet them. There’s less than a tenth of a full banquet assigned to the station, but that’s enough to line every sharktooth deck and observation tier with severe faces, flanked by the muzzles of weapons ranging from palm phasers to near-range thermal bazookas. A ragtag mess, but teeth are still teeth.

A voice booms in the recycled air beyond the archangel’s stone shell. “Exit the units immediately.”

It feels like a mistake, exposing the soft vessel that is the mortal Misery Nomaki to their guns and their naked hostility. But perhaps the denizens of Monkglass will be appeased by their human forms. Surely the Lady Storm just wants to make sure they are who they say they are. So the separation occurs. Misery Nomaki detaches from the womb of the archangel mech and her consciousness withdraws into her fleshbound body with its inadequate senses. The loss is keenly felt. As stone recedes from her torso and legs, as cold light and cold air seep into the crack widening over the pilot module, Misery’s fingers seek out her mother’s amulet. Of course, it’s not there. It’s embedded in the teeth of the archangel mech.

Misery’s implant connects immediately with Monkglass’s system. Superimposed letter and light flood her visual cortex as she steps onto the lip of the pilot’s module. This is the visitors’ index, bright and fulfilling and meant to instill comfort. A singular data lozenge appears over the figure that scowls on a floating platform a rock’s throw away from the two mechs: Commander Ashe, they/them, second-in-command to the Lady Storm. Small and ropy, hard-jawed, with light eyes and hair flat and copper. As Misery crawls up to pry her mother’s amulet from its keyhole, they bark: “Keep your hands where I can see them!”

Misery scowls. “I need this with me.”

“Hands in the air!”

Misery keeps at it, inching the disc out of its receptacle. It comes loose and she slips the amulet’s cord over her head, taking her sweet time. Commander Ashe is not a saint, and neither are the soldiers trembling upon the metal rails of the drydock. They aren’t going to shoot. No one will dare. Monkglass is one of a dozen trading posts, absolutely unremarkable before the siege thrust it into the spotlight. Built and staffed for mediocrity. Its personnel came into their assignments knowing that they were the second pull, the midlist of their cohorts, those assigned after the star pupils have been sent to the exciting, dangerous, challenging parts of space. They expected a life of ease and quiet: placid days spent supplemented with cremoline and sex and other harmless endorphin jolts. If they want to strike fear into Misery, they’ll need to try harder.