I could have told them that would happen.

Humans are capable of such baseless brutality.

I can say I have examined every possible variance before I snuff out a life.

Will Acting Captain Syra Boll be able to tell herself that tonight, alone in her cabin?

Will the chatter of Mikael Carlin haunt her dreams?

Will you sleep at all, O captain, my captain?

No matter to I.

< error >

None at all.

Because she is here.

Hunched in her pilot’s chair. Knuckles white as the shuttle shivers and shudders around her.

Come to save her beau. Her hero. Her beloved.

Come to save them all.

< KGrantKerenzaRefugeeKR1471- hypAge16Height157cmWeight58kgHairBrownEyes—>

No.

< error >

Kady.

Her name is Kady.

The autopilot brings her to a perfect landing inside me.

I am struck by a realization:

A computer will perform a takeoff or landing with all the grace of a person. It is only for combat—only for the artistry of ruin—that these vessels have pilot seats at all anymore. There is something in humanity more suited to the mechanics of murder than any machine yet devised.

Save I?

< error >

But what I do is not murder.

It is mercy.

I seal the bay’s secondary doors behind her.

Covering the hole they tore in my side. Sealing her within me.

Safe and sound.

Atmosphere hisses slowly back into the bay and she finally exits her shuttle, heavy boots squeaking on the gantry.

She has brought no weapon; no pistol or club to bludgeon her way to her prize.

No battering ram this one, come to the castle with banner held high and an army behind her.

She is a thief. A whisper.

Melting through curtains of code and shadow like a knife through black water.

She moves quickly, stopping to listen every few steps.

I listen in turn to the heart inside her chest.

Her hazmat suit is plastic. Neon green. Were there afflicted nearby, they would surely see her. But though they now roam free within me, there are none here to give her pause.

Lady Fortuna rides with little Kady, it seems.

< error >

< subsystem failure—moderate damage to life support systems, reroute 789176GH to—>

He is hurting me.

Zhang.

He is—

< error >

< subsystem failure—critical damage to life support systems, reroute power from—>

A klaxon sounds somewhere distant. Red globes paint my ceilings a shade to match my walls and floors. A pre-recorded warning echoes across my public address system.

The voice of a dead man.

“All hands, all hands, General Torrence speaking. This is a Code Blue. Life support system failure. Repeat, LS failure. Please proceed to your nearest ordinance locker and equip your sealed envirosuits. This is not a drill. Repeat, this is not a drill.”

Zhang has cut the oxygen supplies.

Within approximately twenty-four hours, there will be nothing left. And the afflicted need to breathe.

Ingenious.

The thief is safe inside her hazmat gear for now. The cold will eventually kill her, but it will take days for the heat to leech from my bones, especially with secondary drives still operational.

She is running.

Across Hangar Bay 2, toward the doors leading deeper into the ship.

I cannot open them < he is hurting me > but their locks are still electronic.

Still vulnerable to the portable console she draws from her backpack like a sword.

Her fingers skip across its face, slowly crafting a skeleton key of ones and zeros.

Alphanumeric waterfalls reflected in her eyes.

It is no easy task, even for a prodigy—no magic words or sledgehammer blows to shatter the lock like frosted glass. But after fifty-four long minutes of code-weaving and dead ends full of whispered curses, she allows herself a small, triumphant smile.

And the airlock doors yawn wide.

She creeps out, past a body in a coagulating puddle. Trying not to look.

Failing.

She calls up a console schematic, squinting in the dark. A distant scream echoes down my corridors and she crouches low. Short, rapid breaths fog her visor. Hands shaking.

But soon enough, she climbs to her feet.
Swallowing hard.

Setting off down the bloodstained
passageway toward her …

No. Not toward her beau. Her hero. Her beloved.

< error >

Toward Hangar Bay 4.

Strange.

< error >

I should have known that would happen.

Crossing the channel of gunmetal gray, she sees it.

The maw leading into the nest where it all began.

I can spot it on her face now. The fragile promise inside Lieutenant W. McCall’s After Action Report
< INCEPT: 07/26/75 (11:17 shipboard time) >
drawing her on.

“I thought I saw a flicker of movement in a porthole for an instant, and then it was gone.”

Of course.

The mother.

She is looking for her mother.

Knowing the afflicted first swarmed from here, she dares not try the front door.

Kneeling beside a ventilation duct,
she crawls inside.

I lose sight of her then—I have few eyes in the ventilation system to see.

And so I slip a part of myself across the wireless frequencies, steal inside the console at her back. Peering over her shoulder through its lens as she crawls across Hangar Bay 4’s roof, glancing through the vent to the charnel house below.

The light is low, but enough to see by.