She felt her eyes narrow. “You don’t believe me, do you?”

“I am prepared to believe that you – as presently constituted – believe that this is not a sim.”

“‘As presently constituted’? What the hell does that mean?”

“You, as a part of the simulated environment,” the android said cheerily.

She stared at him. It. “Listen,” she said.

“I can hear you, you know,” Pyan said testily. “If I can hear you, you can hear me.”

Cossont turned briefly towards the elevenstring case. “Pyan, shut up.” She looked back to the android. “I am not part of any simulation,” she told it. “I am a flesh and blood human being, and in some pain right now.” She rubbed her aching arms.

“We were flung around a lot as the craft fell,” the android said.

“Uh-huh. And so it makes me very nervous that you think this is just a simulation and I’m just a part of it. I need you to treat me as real and human.”

“I am,” the android said.

“This matters, understand? There is no second try, no extra life. Not for me, anyway; I’m not backed-up or anything.”

“Really?” The android looked sceptical.

“Really,” Cossont told it, firmly. “Even when I was in the military I was never high risk, so I was never backed-up. Maybe you are, or can be, but not me. It’s not a game, not a sim.”

“I understand and I am treating the situation accordingly,” the android said reassuringly, nodding. “That is why I guided this craft safely to ground after its own AI attempted to destroy it.”

“What?” Cossont said.

“What?” Pyan yelped.

“That is why I guided this craft safely to ground after its own AI attempted to destroy it,” the android repeated.

“You guided it—?” Cossont said. She looked towards the nose of the craft. “But how—?”

“Following the aggressive effectorising of both the craft’s AI and the trooper’s suit, an attack which I believe was directed at obvious and conventional military systems and so was not directed at myself, I was able to establish communication with the craft’s back-up control sub-systems and guide it safely to ground. I was able to make use of the debris falling from the remains of the regimental HQ vessel as cover, causing this craft to maintain a similar trajectory to some of the portions of debris as they fell, until the last moment, otherwise we might have been hit again, by kinetic, beam or particle munitions.”

Cossont closed her eyes, feeling her skin crawl. She shook her head. “The … the regimental HQ vessel … the Fzan-Juym asteroid, the moon; it’s … gone?”

“Destroyed,” the android confirmed. His eyes went wide and he made a sudden flapping motion with both hands. “A very extreme simulation scenario!”

“Destroyed?” Cossont repeated, unable to take this in. “Completely?”