Necroepilogos

Gunmetal grey — walls scratched and scuffed, ceiling ribbed and reinforced — mottled and marbled by remnants of faded cream-white paint, peeling and flaking, rubbed deep into the textured metal, reduced to recessed patterns in the nooks and crannies and hidden corners. Stale air; dried blood; clean steel. A distant throb purred from the deeps, the stately heartbeat of a powerful engine. Nearby: breathing, soft, shallow, difficult; fitful snoring, unquiet sleep. Further away: tiny machine-sounds, mechanical adjustments, auto-loaders sorting shells, the clack of metal on plastic, the murmur of voices behind layers of metal and rubber and wire and meat.

Elpida’s senses woke gradually, long before her conscious mind. She stared upward at that grey-white ceiling for several minutes, unmoving, unthinking, unable.

At least it was not the underside of a coffin lid. Score one for team Telokopolis. She was still alive — or at least as ‘alive’ as a nanomachine zombie could be.

No dreams this time.

Had she died and come back, like when she’d fought the Silico outside the tomb? She didn’t think so; there was too much continuity in her pain.

Elpida stayed very still, except to blink her sore eyelids and swallow her blood-tainted saliva. Her tongue felt like a dusty sponge stuck to the roof of her mouth. She was lying on her back, on a thin layer of foam, with a lumpy pillow wedged beneath her skull. Her hands rested by her sides, neither chained up nor tied down. A weighty blanket was draped over her legs.

She ached all over, with little distinction between muscles, joints, and connective tissue. Her endocrine and nervous systems had been stretched to breaking point, and were currently down and out for necessary recovery. Her head felt stuffy, full of rusty steel wool. Her belly throbbed with stagnant agony — the gut wound, burning away inside her flesh like a chunk of molten metal; but the pain had cooled from red-hot to merely the orange glow of heated steel. She’d healed just enough that the wound no longer consumed a significant chunk of her ability to think.

Her internal clock was still scrambled. She knew she’d been unconscious for a long time, but not how long — perhaps somewhere between six and ten hours.

A full night’s sleep. How luxurious.

Elpida’s eyelids were heavy as lead. Her body demanded more sleep, more rest, more recovery, more time to heal. She almost gave in; perhaps if she slept longer she might dream again, of Telokopolis, of her cadre, of Howl. Sleep would drive away the pain and the thirst for a few more hours.

But she couldn’t; she had responsibilities. She had to wake up and sit up and check on her girls.

No — her cadre. No, wait, that wasn’t right either. Her comrades. Friends? Friends, or companions. Her girls, her—

Forget definitions. Was everybody safe?

Elpida knew where she was: inside the crawler, inside ‘Pheiri’. Her memories of the escape and extraction were jumbled, but she knew she’d gotten everyone on board. Somebody had confirmed that, somebody had said, ‘Yes, Commander’. She’d rescued her cadre — no, Pheiri had rescued her cadre — no, no, Pheiri and Hafina had rescued her friends; no, again, Pheiri had rescued her—

Elpida cleared her thoughts.

Howl?

Howl did not answer. No familiar voice cackled and cavorted inside Elpida’s head.

Howl, please. If you’re there, please say something. I love you.

Pheiri’s engines throbbed a steady heartbeat. Dozens of tiny machine-sounds clicked and whirred from deep inside the metal. Nearby, somebody breathed, shallow and slow. Somebody else was snoring softly. Decking creaked. Bulkheads settled.

And Howl said nothing.

Elpida parted her bone-dry lips. “Howl?”

A blunt voice — not Howl — replied in a whisper: “Hywel?”

Elpida turned her head on the lumpy pillow. She looked around.

She was in a tiny, cramped infirmary, lying on one of two narrow slab beds; the room appeared too small for the amount of equipment crammed inside. The ceiling was very low. One wall was encrusted with cabinets and medical machines bolted to the metal surface; all the devices were dark, switched off, without power — except for a small number of recessed readout screens, filled with blocky green text and unreadable graphs. Many cabinets hung open, disgorging rolls of bandage, wads of gauze, and surgical tools in bloodstained disarray. A medical pod was set into the wall on the far left, but the machine looked broken: the steel-glass cover was shattered, the controls were unlit, and the person-shaped padded recess was crammed with clothing, medical supplies, a few blankets, and several stacks of books. A single bulkhead door stood open in the right-hand corner of the room; the walls beyond were more gunmetal and faded white.

Both beds and the floor were filthy with the brown-red stains of recently dried blood.

On Elpida’s right, lying on the other surgical bed, was Pira.

She’d been peeled out of her armour, most of her clothes stripped off or cut away. Dozens of wounds were wrapped in blood-soaked bandages, stopped up with gauze, and closed by fresh stitches. She’d sustained two separate head wounds: one on the right side of her skull, bandaged tight; another across her left cheek, jaw, and neck, closed up with an ugly mass of stitching, bleeding slowly into pads of gauze. Her bionic right arm was dented in several places, but appeared unbreached and intact. Peppered with bullet wounds and plasma burns, undoubtedly suffering internal damage, her flame-red hair dirty with her own blood, Pira was a mess.

But Pira was alive, breathing softly, and mercifully unconscious.

Ooni was sitting on a fold-out metal seat attached to the wall, wedged into the corner next to Pira’s bed. She was the source of the snoring; her head was rolled back against the peeling paint of the bulkhead, mouth hanging open, eyes closed and fitful, long black hair raked to one side.

Her grey armour carapace was gone and her weapons were nowhere in sight. Ooni was dressed in a tomb-grey under-shirt and a pair of baggy leggings, with a grey poncho or cloak over her shoulders. She looked lank and scrawny without the suit of armour.

Elpida did not have to guess who had disarmed Ooni; Ilyusha was sitting against the open door, red-black bionic claws stretched out across the floor. She cradled her shotgun in her lap, muzzle pointed at Ooni. Ilyusha was asleep too, head slumped against the metal. But her hands still gripped her weapon. Her left bionic arm was sticky black with dried fluid, but the rest of her didn’t look too bad; she’d washed off the worst of the blood and grime. Her blonde hair was all stuck out at odd angles, as if she’d dunked herself in a bucket of water.

On Elpida’s left — sitting on another fold-out metal seat, squeezed between medical machines and a tiny counter top — was a pixie.

Elpida stared. The girl stared back, unselfconscious and unsurprised.

Huge black eyeballs, double the size of human eyes, with no whites or sclerae. Tiny lenses adjusted beneath the surface as she examined Elpida in return. White-grey skin, as if to match the underlying metal of Pheiri’s insides, smooth and pore-less, more like polymer than flesh. She was barely more than four feet tall, built neither like a child nor like an adult with a genetic growth disorder, but slim and slender and compact, as if designed to fit into small spaces or to be folded out of the way when not needed.

Her facial features were neat and delicate, with thin lips and a rounded chin. Black hair was pulled back in a messy ponytail. She wore an oversized grey jumper with the sleeves rolled up, massive socks, and nothing else.

The pixie’s hands and forearms were coated with a sticky sheen of dried blood. She was holding them awkwardly in her lap.

Elpida stared carefully to make sure she was not seeing double: the pixie’s fingers were far too long and delicate to match the rest of her body — with seven fingers and two thumbs on each hand.

Elpida looked back up at those massive, black eyeballs. She croaked: “Hello.”

“Sut, ie, ie,” said the pixie. Then: “Hywel? Hywel? Hywel?”

Her voice was raw, blunt, and very tired. Elpida found it hard to read expression on her face, but now the crinkled sagging around her eyes made sense: shock and exhaustion.

Elpida croaked: “I’m sorry. I don’t understand.” She swallowed more sticky saliva. Her mouth was too dry. “Water? Do you understand me? I need water, I can barely talk.”

The pixie’s eyeballs flickered horizontally. She frowned, hissed through her teeth, and blinked several times. Then she got off her seat, rummaged through the cabinets, and produced a battered tin mug. Then she stared at a pair of nozzles — taps, over a tiny stainless steel sink. She reached for one tap, stopped, let her hand fall to her side, started again, reached for the other, then stopped a second time. She frowned harder and harder as this went on. Elpida did not know what was happening, but she recognised the serious frustration.

“Take your time,” Elpida croaked. “Whatever you need.”

A notebook lay on the tiny counter top next to the sink — smeared with bloodstains, several pages ripped out and crumpled up by bloody hands. More frustration, perhaps?

Eventually the pixie selected a tap; the water trickled out, a low-pressure stream. She held the mug beneath the tap until it started to overflow. Then she hissed with frustration again and turned off the tap with an angry slap. Her hands left bloody smears on everything she touched.

Elpida spent several minutes failing to sit up; now that she and her comrades were safe she could no longer draw on the reserves of adrenaline and determination. Her body knew she was protected by a shell of Telokopolan carbon bone-mesh armour, and that others were dealing with the situation — Atyle and Kagami, she presumed. She needed to rest and recover. Sitting up was for combat, for giving orders, or for killing Covenanters.

The pixie did not try to assist. She just stood next to the bed, holding the mug of water.

Elpida discovered that she had been stripped to the waist. Her armoured coat lay over her legs; her ruined grey t-shirt had been spread out on top of the coat, to show the crescent-and-line symbol she had daubed in her own blood. The symbol had dried, turned brown, and begun to flake away from the fabric.

Her belly was wrapped in fresh bandages; a thick pad of gauze lay beneath, cushioning her gut. A thin line of blood showed through the clean dressing, but that was all.

Flesh pulled taut when she moved, stitches tugging at skin.

Eventually Elpida managed to maneuver herself into a sitting position, by first turning onto her side, then easing her legs over the lip of the infirmary bed, then finally levering herself up with her arms. Her vision throbbed grey and black for several moments; waves of pain radiated upward from her hidden gut wound; she felt like vomiting — then she tasted blood in her mouth. But she swallowed, screwed up her eyes, and gripped the edge of the bed. She found the floor with her feet. She took slow, deep breaths. She waited for her own natural pain-blockers to do their work.

The pixie waited until Elpida held out one hand for the mug.

The water tasted stale and recycled. Elpida drank it all, then asked for more. The pixie obliged. Elpida drained the mug a second time.

“Hywel?” the pixie said.

Elpida shook her head. “Translation isn’t working. Because you’re not a nanomachine revenant, are you? You’re another ‘ART’. Artificial human?”

The pixie did that horizontal flicker with her all-black eyes again, then blinked and frowned. Was she reading instructions?

Elpida pointed at herself. “Elpida,” she said. “That’s my—” 

“Dw i'n gwybod, ydw.” The pixie sighed. “Sut, Elpida.”

Elpida did not need nanomachine translation to understand the words or the attitude. The others had probably said her name plenty of times. She almost laughed. “Sorry, okay. So, what’s your name?”

“Melyn,” said Melyn.

“Melyn.” Elpida smiled. “Nice to meet you, Melyn. We can’t understand each other, not yet, but—”

Melyn rattled off words at high speed: “Dywedodd Pheiri wrthon ni am dal i siarad. Dal i siarad. Dal i siarad. Dywedodd e y byddwch chi'n ei datrys yn y pen draw, achos atgyfodedigion ydych chi i gyd, felly mae'n rhaid i ni dal i siarad. Dw i'n siŵr ei fod e'n iawn. Mae'n iawn. Mae Pheiri bob amser yn iawn. Pheiri?”

Melyn glanced up at the ceiling on that last word — the only one Elpida could understand. Melyn was addressing the tank, Pheiri, by name.

Why not? Elpida had already decided that the crawler was an honorary combat frame.

Elpida shook her head. “I don’t understand. I’m sorry. Where are the others? Amina, the little one, and Atyle, the taller one? And Hafina — is she one of your crew?”

“Maen nhw'n holliach. Holliach. Hywel?” Melyn repeated that word again. “Hywel? Beth oedd hynny'n ei olygu?”

Elpida frowned. If they couldn’t communicate, this was going to be impossible. Had Atyle already figured out the language? “I don’t understand your questions. I’m sorry. But I need to know that everyone is safe. Please nod or—”

Melyn nodded quickly.

Elpida contented herself with that. She allowed her eyes to drift shut. Maybe she should go back to sleep, but—

“Hywel?” Melyn said again. Elpida’s head spiked with a sudden flare of pain. She grunted. Then: “Howl?”

Elpida opened her eyes and blinked at Melyn’s massive black eyeballs.

“ … Howl?” Elpida croaked. “You said Howl?”

“That’s what I keep asking. Keep asking. What I keep asking,” said Melyn. Elpida could understand every word. “Keep asking you why you said Howl. First thing you said. Pilot said. You’re meant to be the pilot. Be the pilot. Pilot. Pilot.”

Melyn spat those last few repetitions, blinking and squinting. Melyn — artificial human, pixie, medic-bot — whatever she was, she was growing frustrated with her own words, as if she couldn’t stop repeating fragments. 

Elpida said, “I can understand you now. Maybe the translation software caught up.”

“What is Howl? What is Howl? Howl?”

“One of my dead sisters. I just thought I heard her voice, that’s all. It’s not important right now.”

Elpida could not possibly have lied any harder.

She wasn’t sure what she had experienced during the escape from the Death’s Heads. Elpida had not just imagined Howl’s voice — she had heard the tone, the rasp, the cackling giggle, the way Howl shaped her vowels and bit off the ends of words she didn’t like.

Elpida was no stranger to hearing the voices of her sisters inside her own head — that was what it felt like being plugged into a MMI-uplink comms network, while piloting their combat frames. All twenty five of her sisters networked together, their thoughts shared so much faster than speech, the most intimate connection possible with another human being. But hearing Howl in her head had not felt like being part of a temporary group-mind.

Howl had only started speaking after that dream — but that was more than a dream, wasn’t it?

A delusion, helped along by her undead nanomachine physiology? The graveworm, imitating Howl’s voice? A projection from the vast network of nanomachine ecology, a ghost in the ecosystem? Or had Elpida somehow re-created Howl inside her own brain, via nanomachine self-modification? Had she partitioned her own consciousness, or perhaps doubled her own undead neurological tissue?

Graveworm, was that you? she thought.

No answer. Elpida did not speak the question out loud; she didn’t want to frighten or upset Melyn any more than she already had.

Howl, please come back. If you can hear me. Or if you’re inside me. I don’t care what you are. Come back.

Nothing.

Elpida’s chest tightened with compacted grief. To be visited by a ghost of one lost so soon, and then abandoned again — it was too much. She doubted she would have made it out of that skyscraper if not for Howl shouting inside her head. Her eyes threatened to prickle with tears.

She took a deep breath and focused her mind; Howl had gotten her this far, for the sake of her new comrades. She needed to focus on them, not herself.

Out loud, Elpida said: “Melyn, did you stitch up my gut wound? And tend to Pira? That’s the woman on the other bed, Pira.”

Melyn looked down at her bloodstained hands and forearms, as if surprised to see them. “Yes. That was me. Was me. Was me. I didn’t know. Didn’t know.”

Wrong question? Melyn was more distressed than before.

“Thank you,” Elpida said, hard and clear, to regain Melyn’s attention. “We’re inside the tank, is that right?”

Melyn’s head snapped up. “Pheiri.”

“Pheiri, right. That’s a good name, I like it. Are you a member of the crew? How many of you are there?”

Melyn frowned, eyes flicking back and forth again. “You’re supposed to be a pilot. Supposed to be a pilot. That’s what Pheiri said. He said we were going to pick up a pilot. Pick up a pilot. P—unnnh.”

Melyn clenched her jaw and grunted hard.

Elpida said slowly: “I am a pilot, yes. I’m a combat frame pilot. Melyn, how many—”

“There’s just me and Haf and Pheiri. Just me and Haf and Pheiri.”

Elpida nodded. “And you rescued us? Thank you.”

“Pheiri saved you. Pheiri went out of his way to save you. Pheiri went a long way to save you. Pheiri keeps us safe and now he wants to keep you safe too. You safe too. I don’t understand why and I want you to tell me why, because you’re the pilot. Tell me why, because you’re the pilot. Pilot. Explain to me why we had to do this. Had to do this. Had to do this. I don’t— don’t- don’t— I don’t understand why we had to do this. Had to do this.”

Elpida took a deep breath. “I’m sorry, Melyn. I don’t know either. I don’t know why Pheiri decided to come save me and my comrades. But I’m grateful that he did.”

Melyn frowned harder. She stared like Elpida was a terrible mystery.

Elpida tried a different track: “Pheiri saved us, then. Should I be thanking him?”

Melyn nodded, then looked up at the ceiling and said: “Thank you, Pheiri.”

“Is he self-piloted? Or were you the driver?”

Melyn stared at her for a long moment; her expressions were difficult to read, not quite human. Elpida decided that Melyn was half-puzzled, half-angry.

“Pheiri is Pheiri,” Melyn said after a moment. “He keeps us safe.”

Elpida nodded along with this; her mind was full of thoughts about combat frames given full autonomy, about dire warnings from the pilot program and the bone-speakers about what might happen if a frame was allowed to grow beyond specifications, about loyalty and true comradeship and this inexplicable machine wearing a piece of her home. She rubbed her thumb across the foam of the infirmary bed mattress — a little piece of the great machine which had invited her inside.

Pheiri felt different to the fallen combat frame lying out there in the crater, inside the ring of skyscrapers: that machine was either crippled or dead, unable to move under her own power, a mystery from orbit, fought over by incomprehensible Necromancers and ideologically vile revenants and mind-scratching worm-guard. Bait, or a trick, or an impossible lure — it meant something to this world which she did not understand.

But this little tank had turned up out of nowhere, surprised everyone, and welcomed Elpida home.

‘Little’. Elpida almost laughed. Pheiri was huge.

Elpida said: “Pheiri has no pilot, then? Am I understanding that correctly? Just you and Hafina?”

Melyn sighed and nodded.

Elpida asked, “Will he hear me, if I just speak out loud?”

Melyn stared and blinked, as if this was a very difficult question. “Of course he will. Of course he will. Of course. What are you even asking? What are you asking?”

Elpida looked at a random spot on the wall and said: “Thank you, Pheiri.”

Melyn relaxed; mission accomplished. Elpida doubted this fusion of combat frame and crawler could actually hear her speak, but playing along helped Melyn feel better. And it helped Elpida, too; she’d often spoken to the combat frames, even when she wasn’t plugged into the mind-machine interface. And this one — this bizarre fusion of different species of armoured fighting machine — had rescued her. She wished she could reach out and pet it somehow.

Elpida said, “The woman on the other bed here, Pira, she took a lot of bullet wounds.” Elpida glanced at Pira as she spoke. “Is she going to be—”

Pira was awake.

Her eyes were open, bloodshot, etched with pain, and narrowed with the effort of consciousness. She glanced around the infirmary, at Ooni, at Melyn, at Ilyusha asleep in the doorway.

“Fuck,” Pira croaked, so softly that it was barely audible.

Elpida said: “Go back to sleep, Pira. You need rest.”

“Speak … for … yourself.”

Go to sleep or get choked out, bitch — said Howl.

Grumpy, grumbly, heavy with sleep. The kind of voice that Howl made after chewing a pillow for six hours. The kind of voice that said she was going to need fucking awake three times before she would get up.

Elpida gasped. “Howl!?”

Pira frowned through the pain. Elpida waited, but Howl did not speak again. She’d rolled over and gone back to sleep.

Pira wheezed: “What?”

Elpida gathered herself. She felt a sudden return of energy — not much, but enough to put the whip-crack of command into her voice. “You’re mine, Pira. I made that clear. One of my cadre—” She almost stopped; she’d meant to say comrade, or maybe friend, but the word just slipped in. She was too exhausted to correct herself. “And I am ordering you to go the fuck back to sleep.”

Pira stared at Elpida for a moment longer, then closed her eyes.

“Good girl,” Elpida muttered.

In the doorway, Ilyusha shifted and grunted in her sleep. Elpida stayed quiet for a long moment. She didn’t want to wake any of the others. Everyone needed rest.

Melyn said: “I don’t know. Don’t know.”

“Mm?”

“You asked if Pira will heal. I don’t know. I don’t know. Haf says Pira saved Pheiri from an anti-tank weapon. I did the best I could— best I could— best I could— but I can’t— I can’t—” Melyn raised one bloodstained hand and thumped herself in the sternum. “Unnf.” She sniffed and carried on: “You’re all nanomachine conglomerations shaped like people. You don’t work like people, but you pretend to work like people. I don’t know. I don’t know anything. I hadn’t been in the infirmary in—” She squinted, eyes flickering back and forth again. “A long time. Forgot it was here. Nobody to treat. Nobody to treat. Forgot.”

Elpida smiled. “Thank you for tending to us anyway. You did a good job.” She nodded at Ilyusha, at the black and sticky fluid clinging to her left arm. “Illy — Ilyusha — she got wounded too, but it’s bionics. Can you do anything about that?”

Melyn pointed at the floor — at Ilyusha’s backpack. The top flap was open. Five cannisters of softly glowing blue were nestled inside, cradled amid Illy’s supply of shotgun shells.

Five cannisters. They’d had six when they had departed for the combat frame.

“She drank one?” Elpida asked.

“She drank a single mouthful,” said Melyn. “Poured the rest down your throat and sprinkled it on your gut wound. On your gut wound. Got in my way. Got in my way. Got in my way. Made her give the dregs to Pira. Didn’t like that.”

Elpida could have laughed if she wasn’t so tired. “Illy means well.”

Melyn’s frown told Elpida that Melyn did not agree.

Elpida said, “Where’s everybody else? Amina, the little one, and Atyle, the tall one with the very dark skin?”

“Amina is sleeping in the … ” Melyn trailed off, frowning with effort. “Bunk room,” she said eventually. “She wanted to stay in here but there was no extra space. The floor is dirty now. Dirty now. Atyle is in the control cockpit talking to Pheiri and your other friends. Your other friends.”

Elpida took a deep breath and looked at the open bulkhead door. “I want to see Amina, and speak to Atyle, and the others.”

Melyn frowned extra hard. Her white-grey skin crinkled around her eyes.

Elpida said: “Do I have to stay in bed? Doctor’s orders?”

Melyn said very slowly: “I am not a doctor. I can’t tell you not to get up. Can’t tell you not to. Can’t tell you no. Can’t tell you no.”

Elpida said, “You can’t tell me no?”

Melyn’s eyes flickered left and right. She frowned and squinted and clenched her jaw. Elpida waited, but Melyn couldn’t answer.

“Melyn,” Elpida said slowly. “Is answering questions difficult for you?”

Melyn huffed through her nose. “No. What are you talking about? Talking about?”

“If answering a question is difficult, you don’t have to say anything. You can just tell me it’s hard. Okay?”

Melyn stared at her as if this was a very stupid suggestion.

Elpida tried something else. “Melyn — what are you?”

Melyn blinked. “A person? What a thing to ask.”

Elpida raised a hand in apology. “Earlier you called me a ‘nanomachine conglomeration’. Which means you’re not? You’re not a nanomachine-based revenant, like us?”

Melyn stared. “Of course not.”

This wasn’t getting either of them anywhere. Elpida said: “Why did you help us, Melyn?”

“Pheiri said he had to. Said he had to. Of course we’re going to help him! He’s Pheiri!”

Elpida nodded. “Okay, that makes sense. Does that mean I’m a … a good person? Does that mean we’re all on your side?”

Melyn clenched her jaw, trying to contain something — then she lost her temper. “I don’t know! Stop talking to me like I’m an idiot! An idiot! Stop!”

Elpida raised a hand again. “Sorry. I’m sorry, Melyn. I’m just trying to figure out … ”

Why had Pheiri helped Elpida and her comrades? Why had this pixie-like ‘artificial human’ tended to her gut wound and Pira’s bullet holes? Why was Amina sleeping in their bunk room? Why had this gigantic armoured machine — with, presumably, self-directed autonomy, like an unleashed combat frame — risked damage or destruction to extract her from a deadly firefight? Why had he cooperated with Atyle and Kagami?

Elpida hadn’t considered any of this during the escape. But now, watching Melyn struggle, Elpida began to consider the implications.

If Pheiri really was descended from Telokopolan technology, then perhaps he was following an imperative to rescue and protect her, personally. On the other hand, perhaps he just hated the Death’s Heads. Or perhaps this machine had an agenda of its own, or belonged to some other faction or side that Elpida could not yet comprehend.

But it didn’t feel that way. Where were the demands, the explanations, the threats?

Was this crawler-frame hers to command? Probably not.

Elpida needed to ask questions; so did Melyn, apparently. The little medic-bot didn’t seem to understand any more than Elpida did. She seemed lost.

So? Howl grumbled. Make her yours, dumb-arse.

Elpida said: “Melyn, does the name ‘Telokopolis’ mean anything to you?”

Melyn frowned in a different way — less obstructed, more curious. “No. No. But it might be in one of my notebooks. I’ll have to check. Have to check.” She glanced at the bloodstained notebook on the little counter top, then sighed.

Elpida bottled her disappointment; this line of questioning was not for her benefit. “Okay. Melyn, alright, let me try to explain what I can. I’m not just a pilot, I’m also a Commander. From Telokopolis — which might be the same place that Pheiri originally came from. Maybe. I’m not sure. Commander — that means I’m in charge—”

Melyn huffed. “I know what that word means. I’m not stupid. Not stupid. I have books.”

Elpida paused. “I apologise. So, I’m a Commander. And I think that might be why Pheiri went out of his way to rescue me. If Pheiri is from Telokopolis, and I’m from Telokopolis, and I’m the Commander, and Pheiri keeps you safe — that means it’s part of my job to keep you safe, too. That makes you part of my responsibility. My cadre. I’m your Commander too, Melyn.”

Melyn listened to this improvised garbage with an expressionless look. Elpida knew this was nonsense — she was making it up as she went. Melyn and Hafina were not hers to command; she had no idea why Pheiri had rescued her and her comrades. But Melyn was distressed, Melyn needed answers, Melyn was following some long-buried programming without knowing why. Strangers had filled her home and bled all over her floor; she deserved to be included.

“I’m the Commander,” Elpida repeated. “And I say you’re a doctor. You’re the closest thing we have to a doctor, or perhaps a surgeon. So, doctor — do I have to stay put and rest, or can I walk to the cockpit?”

Melyn stopped frowning quite so hard. She stared at Elpida’s belly for a long moment, at the bandages and the gauze and the thin crimson line.

“You lost a lot of blood. A lot of blood. But you don’t need your blood, not really. You can make it to the cockpit, but you might fall over and burst all the stitches and I’ll have to work again. And I don’t want to work again. It felt weird and I didn’t like it and my mind is all freshed and cleaned. I don’t like that either. Don’t like that either.”

Elpida said: “Melyn, I promise I won’t fall. If I need to sit down, I’ll sit down.” She held out a hand. “Will you help me to stand up, please?”

Melyn huffed — but she helped.

Elpida’s legs were surprisingly steady and strong; her head swirled with a drop in blood pressure and her gut complained by driving long spikes of pain up into her torso and lungs. She was correct about the low ceiling: she couldn’t stand straight. She had to hunch her upper back and lower her head to avoid banging her skull on the metal.

She left her armoured coat where it lay; she didn’t want to risk popping any stitches before she even left the infirmary. But she picked up the shredded t-shirt with the crescent-and-line symbol, and draped it over her shoulders.

Before she turned toward the bulkhead hatch she examined Pira and Ooni and Ilyusha once more. All three were sleeping soundly. But what might happen if Ooni or Ilyusha awoke without Elpida present? What if they both woke up and spoke to each other? What if nobody was around to halt any escalation?

Melyn must have read her expression. The pixie-sized ART said: “They all agreed not to kill each other. Not to kill each other.”

Elpida looked down at her. “They did?”

Melyn nodded. “When you shouted at them.”

“ … I shouted at them? When?”

“When I was gluing your gut wound, after the stitches. You woke up. You woke up. You woke up and said ‘Fucking bitches get along or get your heads knocked together. Do what the Commander fucking said.’ Then you passed out again. It worked and they stopped. They stopped.”

Elpida chuckled. Howl, speaking through her lips.

She had made it clear: they were her girls, she was their Commander. They had their orders. No fighting.

Elpida went to meet Pheiri.