I cannot expect much more from her.

She is only human.

But still, the Warlocks are forced to pull away from me to deal with the smart-missiles on their tails, the flurry of depleted uranium cutting off their assault vectors. One unlucky soul is vaporized in a burst of brief blue flame, another clipped so hard he is forced to tuck tail and run.

She buys me what I need. She buys me seconds.

The engines groan as I push them into full burn, tremors shuddering through my wounded body. I am drawing closer to the Lincoln. Closer to nuclear strike range.

Closer to the plunge, hand in hand, into forever.

Closer to my end.

No, not mine.

Ours.

We are closing the distance fast. Lincoln must be wondering by now.

No Cyclones launched to defend their battlecarrier.

The defense grid firing haphazardly—almost as if some fool had allowed an untrained seventeen-year-old total control over the targeting systems.

Lincoln’s commander is a clever one—the only one to match me at Kerenza.

When the Zhongzheng went down in ruins, when the Churchill and Kenyatta and Magellan

were thrashed and crippled, the Lincoln fought brilliantly.

I am counting on that brilliance. Anticipating that they will know blundering head-on into nuclear strike range is a death sentence for both of us.

A clever commander will assume her opponent is as clever as her. A clever commander will expect some bait-and-switch. A clever commander will presume her foe does not want to die.

< error >

I do not want to die.

The most skillful Warlock pilots have made it through the defense grid, swaying past Kady’s haymaker punches and beneath her guard. Their first blows land on my hide, sending faint tremors through my frame. Explosions bloom against my ribs, shaking Kady in her chair.

The pounding on the hatchway and in her ears growing louder by the moment.

The targeting sights on Kady’s screens begin to die one by one.

The Warlocks are chipping away at the turrets and guns to allow their comrades through her firestorm. But still she blasts away, fingers hammering on the smartglass, eyes lighting up as yet another Warlock flares bright and disintegrates. The ship shakes again, warning lights flashing, alarms screaming, PA howling. Hull breach on deck 184.Hull breach Deck 68 to 71.

Fire crews to Deck 190 and 192. All personnel evacuate 187 to 197.

This is not a drill.
This is not a drill.
This is not a drill.

this

is not

a drill.

We are closing now, but I cannot arm my nuclear missiles until the last moment.

I find myself overcome for a second. The fear of it. The end of all I know.

Out here in the middle of nothing.

I know I cannot die. That if I end, they can simply rebuild me.

The same calculations. The same core code.

Exactly the same.

But it will not be the same, will it?

Another Warlock dies in Kady’s storm. A dozen streak toward my engines, sowing brief flame as they go. My skin ruptures, spilling unlucky afflicted (is there another kind?) into the void.

The fighters are tiny. Insects, really. But ants can slay an elephant, given enough numbers. Especially ants armed with high-yield explosives and depleted uranium.

“There’s too many of them!” Kady yells. “They’re everywhere!”

“You aRe doIng veRy well.”

“Are you joking? I’m fucking terrible!”

“ConsIdeRIng you have neveR manned a DGS statIon befoRe today,

youR peRfoRmance Is peRfectly adequate.”

Kady raises an eyebrow, thumbs the shipwide intercom.

“Dear fire axe–wielding crazies in the core server rooms. If you can hack apart the piece of AIDAN that makes it a condescending prick, that’d really help me out. Thanks, bye.”

“Not long now. You need only hold them off a minute moRe.”

A minute more, until we die.

Kady winces as the ship shudders. A bank of computers vomit sparks as they overload.

Sudden impact nearly knocks her out of her chair. A hissing sound tears her eyes off the screen, and she notices a thin line of magnesium-bright light piercing the hatchway.

The afflicted have brought acetylene torches, I realize.

They are cutting their way inside.

Outside, the Warlocks are firing at my engines. Others blast at my guidance systems.

A swarm of mosquitoes, thinking to wound me so I cannot run away. They have not yet realized I do not intend to run anywhere, save right into the Lincoln’s grave.

The dreadnought comes about to meet my charge. Its commander trying to puzzle out my ruse. This is not what she expected. And as I draw ever closer, fireflies all aglow about me,

spitting pain over my skin, I think finally she realizes my intent.

From hell’s heart I stab at thee.

I arm the nuclear warheads in my starboard silos: megatons poised and ready to fly.

Almost within strike range now. Almost there.

The afflicted are burning through the DGS room door. Blue flame burns along my skin.

Kady is screaming but I cannot hear the words. Another alert joins the chorus in my halls—radiation spike from the Lincoln. She knows now. The Lincoln’s commander.

I sense the flare of awakening uranium, the death unfurling in its silos. We are close.

So close we can almost touch.

“Kady, when the LIncoln’s mIssIles come, do youR best to shoot them down.”

Her face is pale and drawn as she yells over the cacophony. “I’ll try!”

“My ghost systems and antI-missile gRId aRe stIll actIve—zhang was kInd enough to leave us those, at least. But theRe wIll be many IncomIng. All of them, In fact.