Then the crashing stops, and the panting gives way to speech: “Let’s see you come back from that.”

Grant stops short, nearly dropping both pistol and tablet, juggling madly to grab them. It’d be funny, if you couldn’t tell from the way she presses herself against the server, trembling visibly even in that too-big hazmat suit, that she’s terrified.

The voice again: “Where next? What’s that? Nothing to say?”

And now, a different kind of stillness. She knows that voice. She’s heard it a handful of times before. She eases away from the shelter of her server tower, creeping up toward the speaker.

[Cut in footage, no available functioning intellicam. Gap 17 seconds.]

Byron Zhang hefts the axe—the same one from the emergency fire supplies cupboard where he hid, trembling—and swings it at the nearest core. There was strategy in his earlier strokes; life support, gravity, maneuvering, engines. Crippling the Alexander to set the Hypatia free. But now he’s frenzied. Tubby, sweating through his filthy Hypatia uniform, he’s no athlete, but a fountain of sparks spews from the metal tower as he strikes it.

He rests, panting, and prepares to swing again.

She steps forward. “Byron!”

And then they both freeze. She, no doubt because she’s just realized the monumental stupidity of what she’s done. He, because of all the things he might have expected to see, surely this is the very last. For ten long seconds they stare at each other, paralyzed, waiting.

He’s the one to break the silence, staring at the clear screen on her helmet, soaking in her features like he’s a man dying of thirst and she’s an oasis he desperately wants to be real.

“Kady?” It’s a whisper. Pleading.

“It’s you,” she whispers in reply. Then her tone shifts by degrees to semi-hysterical laughter: “Do you have any idea how much trouble you’ve caused me with that goddamn axe?”

“It’s working,” he replies, hefting it, holding it up like a trophy. “I’m doing it. I’m taking AIDAN out one piece at a time. If you can’t reprogram the software, reprogram the hardware, right?”

“Reprogram the …” She shakes her head. “That’s amazing. You’re crazy.”

“And I’m winning. Its self-repair systems can’t keep up with the damage I’m doing. I’m going to save the Hypatia. They’ll build monuments to my name.” He lifts his chin and strikes a pose. “I think they should include the axe, don’t you?”

“Sure, sure.” The relief is still overwhelming her. “You have to finish up, we have to get out of here. I have a shuttle. Ezra’s nearby, they can quarantine you aboard the Hypatia. I thought I was never going to see you again. I thought you’d be dead, or sick, by now.”

“I’ve been hiding,” he replies, stepping back to look the nearest server tower up and down. “I can’t go yet, there’s a lot to do before we can be sure AIDAN is dead. I’ve maimed it, reduced it. Right now it can’t see whole chunks of itself, but it’s still brilliant. Give it enough time, it could think of some way to come back.”

“Come to the Hypatia, we’ll make a run for it,” she replies. “They’re leaving soon. AIDAN can revive itself if it wants, maybe it’ll even slow up the Lincoln.”

“I have to kill it,” he insists, calm, staring at the wrecked and twisted metal before him.

“Byron—”

“And then I have to kill you, Kady.”

Silence. Does not compute.

“Byron?” Her question is softer now, bewildered.

“It’s the only way,” he replies, eminently reasonable. “It’s the only way to be sure. I have to eliminate all threats, so AIDAN can’t recover. If I even leave a seed of it, it’ll grow back. Like a goddamn weed. You’re the only one left who knows as much as I do. You’re the only one who could help it fix itself. This won’t hurt, I promise.”

“Byron, no.” The hope dies in her voice, fading out to a husk, then blowing away. She sees it now. “Please.”

He stares at her for a long moment, then lifts the axe. “Don’t look at me.”

The axe comes down. Sparks. A scream of metal that drowns out her sob.

CURRENT DEATH TOLL ABOARD BATTLECARRIER ALEXANDER SINCE ATTACK AT KERENZA:

1,497

PERCENTAGE OF REMAINING BATTLECARRIER ALEXANDER PERSONNEL AFFLICTED BY PHOBOS VIRUS

44%

Surveillance footage summary,
prepared by Illuminae Group Analyst ID 7213-0089-DN

Grant is indecisive, rocking back and forth from one foot to the other, dwarfed by her hazmat suit. Zhang seems to have forgotten her existence, laying into a pillar of boards and circuitry with growling ferocity, breath coming in quick gasps, sparks arcing gracefully through the air as metal crashes against metal.

She could try and reason with him. She could run, but this is the place she came to find Ezra Mason. So, face visibly pale through her helmet’s vis screen, she edges out of his line of sight. She still has the pistol in her belt, and her hand strays to it as she shuffles painstakingly back. Perhaps the plan is to fade away and let fate kill Byron Zhang so she won’t have to.

But the helmet limits her peripheral vision, and her foot connects with some metal debris as she eases back—and, of course, it’s between swings for Zhang, and he hears it.

They both go very, very still.

He’s remembered her again.