boring into her shoulder. If anyone aboard wanted a Human, they’d be out here by now…right? Meanwhile, her mother is dying and the station is twelve minutes from actual catastrophe. That makes the decision for her. She hoists her mother farther up on a throbbing shoulder and pushes forward. The quickest way is directly underneath that thing, so that’s the way they’ll go.
If it weren’t for the red-hot purpose pumping through her veins, Sarya would not have made it. The completion of each step seems like an impossible dream, but each time she begins the next with furious determination. I am Sarya the Daughter, she tells herself, and her self responds with strength. She carries her mother, step by step, out of the maze of drones, out into the empty space on the other side, and under the gorgeous silver ship. It’s a perfect mirror, its rounded surface reflecting a crazed version of Dock A, where a bloodied Human drags a crippled Widow across a ceiling, leaving streaks of combined gore behind. But it doesn’t open, thank the goddess.
“Eleven!” calls Sarya when they reach the other side. Her voice echoes around Dock A for a full five seconds.
AIVVTECH QUALITY IS WORTH THE WAIT, says the suit’s holo ring for a few seconds. Then, with a massive clang, it falls forward onto its arms. “Hello!” it says in its devastatingly cheerful voice. “Thank you for choosing an AivvTech R2 Universal Autonomous Environment! How can I improve your day?”
“Eleven, medical mode!” Sarya gasps. Just a few more steps…
“This intelligence may not be authorized to—”
“Your owner is not coming,” says Sarya, nearly stumbling with exhaustion. “And also the station is about to explode.”
“Not to worry!” says Eleven. “This suit will likely survive any depressurization event.” The voice changes, slightly enough that Sarya might not have picked up on it before her previous experience with the suit. “But…please explain about my owner?”
“My mother—” She drags her mother another step. “This is my mother, by the way—”
“Hello, your mother!”
“She—” She pauses, weighing what she knows. This is the suit that released her. It is now her—and her mother’s—only hope. Which means it’s worth the gamble. “She killed your owner,” she says.
Eleven’s holo ring changes through several colors and finally settles on blue. “You killed Hood?” it asks in a quieter voice.
A long sigh emerges from Shenya the Widow’s battered mandibles. “Old…friend,” she murmurs. “So very…old.”
“This is what Hood did to her,” says Sarya, refusing to glance back at the silver ship. “She was protecting me…like you protected me.”
Eleven stands there, silent. Its holo ring flicks from blue to orange, but no words are displayed.
Sarya squats to let her mother slide off her shoulders and onto the deck. She slides one hand between head and deck, carefully keeping the other away from the trembling and razor-sharp mandibles. She’s never seen her mother look weak before, but here she is, helpless as a premature hatchling, limbs splayed across the metal. They’ve come so far. They’re so close.
“I know you’re more than you pretend to be, Eleven,” Sarya says, looking up at the towering suit. “You freed me, and you risked something to do it.” She pauses, realizing: she’s not trying to manipulate a sub-legal intelligence. She is, honestly and genuinely, appealing to a fellow mind. She is petitioning a sub-legal, not ordering it. It’s a strange feeling. “Please…help us,” she says. “Take us off the station.”
The suit does nothing at all for a moment, while Sarya’s words and hope die away around her. And then, with a now-familiar tone, its gleaming front cracks open and its gangway descends. Sarya stands, nearly screaming as her utility suit slides over her various wounds. She’s done it.
She takes a step back as the two massive arms heave into motion with the low hum of servos. They are surprisingly gentle as they collect Widow limbs into an easy-to-transport package, wrapping her mother and lifting her into the red-lit interior. The straps emerge, helping guide the wayward extremities.
“Six minutes!” says Ellie. “I’d also like to inform everyone that an emergency relief fleet is outbound from our Network corridor and will arrive in approximately eight days. Those of you in lifeboats should be fine, but those in pressure suits might want to scavenge some canisters of your preferred atmosphere before then.”
Her mother whispers something, a broken sound in the silence of the dock.
“It’s going to be okay,” says Sarya, smiling through her tears. “We can both fit, and Eleven can fix