The Aviator Awakening

I groaned and pushed the bot aside, physically removing myself from its disorienting connection. Nausea hit full force. The world around me shook, not helping my knotted stomach. It took a moment before I registered the shaking was not a cybernetic effect, but the ship itself. The ship. Amara. I sprang up, powering through a dizzying torrent of alerts pinging across the main system, which passed through me in unison with the ship. I stumbled away from the med bay equipment to distance myself from the core’s inner workings.

The ship's interior reminded me of Amara’s handiwork. Her attention to detail was evident—calming despite the shaking and mass of alerts. I traced my biocircuited fingertips along the corridor walls to skim the system as I walked. The local AI aided me in locating Amara and Nerzogk. The two of them were at the control deck. My search for Ali came up blank.

Another round of violent shaking threatened to knock me off my feet. I leaned against the corridor wall, scanning the stats while I waited for the turbulence to pass. Critically low shields. Compromised landing gear. Imminent engine failure.

The shaking calmed, and I continued along my directed path.

“This’ll be messy.” Amara’s voice drifted through as I entered the control deck. “You should go check on the Aviator. Make sure he’s secure,” she instructed. Nerzogk’s pod seat had enlarged to fit his oversized reptilian frame, making Amara look tiny in comparison. Her bravado made up for the difference in size. She was clearly the one in charge.

“What did I miss?” I asked, unable to hide my smile. The situation might be dire, but I felt swept into an impossible dream. Her brunette hair swayed in the diminishing artificial gravity, yet another sign of the failing systems.

“Strap in, Aviator. We’re landing soon.”

“If you can call it a landing,” Nerzogk grumbled.

“We’ll be hitting the surface soon,” Amara corrected to indulge Nerzogk’s pessimism as she struggled to force the navigation system against its failsafe measures. “Lrend it. The core is overriding my controls.”

If we weren’t on the verge of crashing, I’d want to take in her image longer. Her scowl, her assumption of authority. Her unabashed authenticity. No sense of illusion, no surveillance to make pretense necessary. We could be in hell’s inferno itself, and I would be perfectly happy so long as it meant I had a place at her side.

The empty cocoon seat next to Amara at the controls morphed around me, providing an excellent connection to the system. “I’ll give it a try,” I said while solidifying my merge with the ship’s network. Ali’s stifled symphony mixed with the room’s cybernetic pulse, her isolation pod hidden somewhere nearby. Relief lightened my chest, and I switched my focus to the task at hand.

“We can’t allow the stealth to slip.”

“Shield redistribution will sacrifice defensive integrity,” I warned.

“Did I ask your opinion?” Amara remained focused on her controls, although I could sense the glare she gladly would’ve affixed with her words. “Stealth shields stay at full power,” she repeated.

I shrugged and did as ordered. The core immediately attempted to restore the defenses. I overrode its failsafe measure, putting complete trust in Amara’s orders while allowing the shields to fail. A rapidly growing planet approached us, or us to it. Several massive storm patterns riddled its atmosphere. Patches of deep blue sea disrupted its grey surface beneath the storm clouds.

“How long can the cloak hold?” Amara asked.

“Siphon energy from the engine.”

“That’s suicidal.”

“Lhra, Aviator,” she growled. “Just do it.”

“She’s right. There are some things worse than death,” Nerzogk concurred.

I did as instructed. Predictably, the engine failure alerts increased. “When the engine fails, the shields will go with it,” I pointed out.

“Thanks for stating the obvious,” Amara scoffed.

The planet loomed larger. We passed through the edges of its thick atmosphere. Proximity alerts flooded the system, falling silent as the engine reached its limit. We entered the arms of a cyclone, our collision course set to as gentle an incline as possible. The shaking increased. I could hear Nerzogk readjusting himself to prepare for what was going to be an extremely unpleasant stop.

Life support failed along with the other systems. Heat from re-entry entered the control deck, obscuring our visual outside. We all knew collision was imminent, but without the system’s navs and without a reliable line of sight, an air of panic grew with the temperature. Amara kept the ship as steady as possible through manual piloting. I released my hold on the mute system and attempted to locate Ali. I traced her faint presence thanks to the spacecraft's electrical standstill. Her pod was stored in a compartment near Amara’s feet.

“Brace for impact!” Amara ordered, letting go of the controls. I caught a final glimpse of her seat cocooning around her as mine did the same. Despite the cocoon’s embrace, our thunderous crash ended with a violent jolt. When the silence came, I half expected not to wake up. When I did wake up, it took some time to manipulate the seat mesh, without a power source, into releasing my body.

I fell onto the ceiling—which was now the floor—and groaned from knocked-out wind returning to my lungs, coughing from the salty dust slowly filling the spacecraft. The compartment housing Ali swayed open above me, her pod still strapped inside. The storm outside swirled clouds of tiny grains through our heavily damaged hull. I held my breath—as if that might save me if the air were not breathable. When I didn’t pass out, I risked an exhale and inhale. Then another. The atmosphere was thin but didn’t pain my lungs. The ship swayed in the wind, threatening to roll over when stronger gusts hit. The weight from the dunes carpeting the ceiling kept us steady. Amara and Nerzogk’s seats were intact, their bodies locked in their cocoons.

I checked to confirm their vitals were stable. Neither of them responded when I called their names. Still unconscious.

The spacecraft was disturbingly quiet aside from screeching wind and sand scraping against its hull. I searched for the ship’s silent core, merging with the deadened system until I found traces of its localized AI, reduced to a flicker. It was in far worse condition than any of the three of us, its tiny algorithmic life faint and on the verge of extinguishing. I scrambled to find an external power supply for it.

Nerzogk’s cocoon swayed—subtly at first, and then violently as he came to. I quickly wrapped up what I was doing, hotwiring an unused maintenance bot’s heart to the core, and sludged across the ever-growing salt-sand dunes to his pod. My skin was beginning to dry and crack from exposure to this planet’s elements, but the air was breathable, and that had far more importance than anything else.

The seat’s protective mesh stifled Nerzogk’s voice. I attempted to force his capsule into a better position. It refused to budge. I rushed to push piles of salt-sand under him to lessen the impact. Any remaining moisture in my skin dried from the contact, and a bitter taste and grind of grains inevitably found their way into my mouth. Nerzogk twisted with growing panic, fighting his pod’s protective hold. I finished my shoveling and got to work manipulating the cocoon. His fit of twisting knocked me over more than once. Finally, it released, and Nerzogk dropped ungraciously into the sand.

“What the Lhra….” He rubbed off the salt, spitting out a few bitter grains. His armored reptilian skin gave him more protection from the elements than my human skin, but he still looked bothered by it. I offered him a hand. Instead of helping him up, his weight forced me to sink and slip into the sand. We both laughed, joined by a particularly howling gust from the storm outside.

“Amara?” Nerzogk asked as he righted himself.

I pointed to where she remained unmoving in her pod. He surveyed the damage and whistle-hissed, a sound somewhat near to a sigh. “This is gonna set us back a while.”

“Why were the stealth shields so important?” They were out of commission now, along with everything else. Which meant if we were hiding from something nearby, we were completely exposed.

“The storm will give us cover,” Nerzogk answered the underlying question of whether or not we were at risk without them. “And, now that we are on the surface, there’s no concern about being spotted.”

“Sure, that’s great,” I agreed while trying to piece together the puzzle of our situation. “Spotted by who?”

Nerzogk massaged his neck. “We weren’t able to shake the Imperial scouts.”

I shivered at the implication.

“So we entered into the Legion’s shadow,” he continued.

“The Empire will almost certainly track us here. The stealth was necessary to remain undetected by the Legion,” he said and approached Amara’s cocoon to analyze it for movement. “We should get her down.”

We passed beneath the open compartment overhead housing Ali’s muffled symphony. Nerzogk shook his head, answering my question before I asked it.

I turned my attention away from my AI friend and joined the jade man next to Amara’s motionless web. “Did you know the atmosphere here was breathable? Or just…a lucky break?” I asked while I entered the cocoon’s faint current, a simple task not requiring too much focus.

He steadied the unraveling seat-pod. “Nah, this planet fits the Niribian profile. Their gravity preferences, radiation values, all that good stuff. They enjoyed terraforming home-like worlds.”

“Is there wildlife out there to contend with?” I double-checked the cracked hull. I probably should’ve been on the alert for something like that sooner.

He laughed. “In the oceans, yes. Out there, on the land…nah.”

Nerzogk caught Amara’s unconscious body when the webs entwined around her released. He had me fetch a med bot and ran a scan. When nothing serious showed, he ran another scan on himself and then me. He took a boost and settled in the sand to wait for Amara to wake.

“So this planet is terraformed, but why not Vor-Vardos?” I had so many questions—and no implant or threats to hinder my curiosity. There was so much I wanted to know. The questions teemed over, no longer a threat, and swirled with excitement rather than panic. Was it okay for me to be this thrilled in such a desperate situation? I wished little Ali could be allowed out of her pod to process information and power-load the answers through to me.

“Slightly off the Niribian profile. I guess they figured, in that case, it was easier to modify the people than the world. Although it is terraformed to a certain extent.”

“Vorgons were created by Niribians?” I asked, shocked I’d gone this long not knowing such a significant detail.

I checked on the core’s faint pulse to make sure it was okay before re-joining him. Nerzogk sat with his jade shoulders hunched over, his expression sharing none of my excitement. I tempered my curiosity, holding back the less pressing questions. For now.

“Are you regretting it yet? Helping me?” I asked once I’d joined him on his sand pile.

“I’m an operative. I don’t linger on ‘what ifs.’”

“How long was I out?”

“You missed a lot of excitement,” Nerzogk chuckled. “It would’ve been great to have you earlier. You would’ve been useful.”

I smiled at that. Then traced the sand as the weight of our escape started to settle on my shoulders. “You could’ve handed me over, you know. If it comes down to it, I’d rather be traded in than put you both in peril.”

“I thought I established that I don’t deal in ‘what ifs.” Nerzogk leaned back against the sand. The ship rocked gently as the storm began to die down. “That self-sacrifice mindset will get us screwed. We’re relying on you for our survival.”

“What will happen to you and Amara… if….”

He shuddered, not answering.

“If I give myself up, would it save you?” I whispered.

“What’s done is done.” He fixed his golden slit eyes on me. “I want to make it clear—you’re not allowed to make contact with the Empire. No negotiations without our consent,” he ordered, still skeptical.

“I’m serious.”

“I owe both of you my life.” I shook some stray sand from my suit. A white jumpsuit, a lingering mark from the fate I’d narrowly escaped. Shivers shot across my skin, but I forced a smile. “What you guys decide to do with that life is up to you. If you say no negotiations, then there will be no negotiations.” With a more serious tone, I put into words the thing that had me most concerned. “You’ve put yourselves at risk for my sake. I’m serious when I say that if it comes to it, I’ll accept it if you decide to go back. If my surrender will guarantee your safety.” Sitting in the ruins of this spaceship that had become a sand bottle gave me the feeling our chances of survival on the run were slim. I wasn’t sure I could handle the guilt if anything happened to them because of me.

His gaze held mine, searching for the truth in my commitment. “There’s not an option to go back. No matter what assurances they might give, it’s simply not an option. Our betrayal is unforgivable.”

“Lhra, you guys are gloomy,” Amara mumbled, slowly rubbing her head. She blinked her eyes open and gazed unmoving at the inverted interior. “We must have some luck on our side, to still be alive.”

“We don’t need luck; we have him.” Nerzogk patted my back and laughed, a thundering sound that overwhelmed the storm’s dying scream.

“Yeah, we could’ve used that luck earlier.” She propped herself up and scanned the rest of the sand-filled ship. Her eyes lingered on the hotwired core, and a smile tugged at her lips. “It’s not a total loss, I see.”

“The navs are down,” Nerzogk announced.

“Aviator, can you transfer the core?” Amara stood, shaking salt from her hair and uniform.

Amara left the control deck, strolling along the sandy ceiling as if it were completely normal. She returned with a small bot and handed it to me. I took the emptied bot over to where I’d established an emergency connection with the core. Its faint pulse clung to its familiar domain. I merged with it, rerouting my hot-wiring to connect with the spherical mechanic shell, and patiently coaxed the AI core out of its network.

The local AI remained stubbornly connected to its home, even as that home became increasingly inhospitable, which made its conversion a time-consuming project. I had to resort to killing off the few remaining power routes within the system to force it to agree to my terms. By the time the stubborn existence finished the transfer, the light outside was fading from the ship’s cracked hull.

Amara took the converted core aside to check my work, settling atop one of the growing sand dunes. Nerzogk untangled Ali’s pod from her battered upside-down compartment. “How confident are you that this bot isn’t corrupted?” he asked me. Amara glanced up from her analysis to listen in on the conversation.

“I’ll need to get it out of the pod to check,” I admitted.

Nerzogk shared a glance with Amara, confirming her role as our ragtag boss. She tapped the salvaged core’s housing unit while she weighed our options. When her tapping stopped, my breath stopped with it, and I waited to hear my little bot’s fate. “Can you stop it from emitting a signal if one is triggered by its release?”

She looked to Nerzogk. “We need every advantage we can get.”

Nerzogk nodded, and he shifted his attention back to me. “We can’t release it in this star system. The Empire is one thing; we can’t risk alerting the Legion and adding their threat to our already dismal odds. It’ll have to stay in its isolation pod for now.”

Amara rested her elbow on her knee and perched her chin against her fist. Her eyes met mine. “I’m sorry, Aviator. I know you’re attached to the little bot.”

“It’s fine. I can wait. It’s enough for now to know she’s safe from being reset. Or refitted.” I stood and shook off the sand that had accumulated during my merge. Tiny grains stuck to my exposed legs, my jumpsuit shorts not well suited for the environment. “Ali will be useful on the run. More useful than me in some aspects,” I attempted to lighten the mood.

“She?” Amara’s eyes widened with a smile. “Are you finally admitting the bot is your favorite comrade?”

“I never claimed favorite,” I said, while wiping off as much sand as possible. “But you’ll see. It’s a great little bot.”

“I don’t doubt it.” She gave me a wink. “I look forward to properly meeting her. Once it’s safe to do so.”

Nerzogk adjusted Ali’s pod to follow him. Then he crossed the distance and handed me a uniform cartridge. I gladly accepted the opportunity to erase my white lab jumpsuit from sight. A thick spacesuit matching the ones they were both wearing cascaded over my skin. Once the nano-material settled, he handed me a small necklace-like device which, once connected, sewed itself into the suit’s collar.

Amara returned to join us, trailed by the ship’s core, which had a map projected above its small exterior. She looked stunning, slide-hopping along the interior’s dune-blanketed wreckage like it was her playground. She slid to a stop at my side and draped an arm behind my neck and across my shoulders. “Don’t be too worried, Aviator. I’m sure that little Ali will be fine.”

I bit my lip and nodded. She squeezed me in a brief sideways hug. “Great. Now, let’s get going before we’re buried alive in this sand.”

I missed her as soon as her body released mine. Nerzogk noticed and chuckled. He set Ali’s pod to attach onto his suit like a pack. I distracted myself by checking the map projected above the salvaged core. The destination Amara had marked was near. Only a few hours' walk from our crash site. Nerzogk looked it over to confirm the route, then he and I followed Amara, weaving through the upside-down corridors to the dock. Her chosen exit was closer to the point of impact and badly damaged. The hatch was jammed shut.

“We could blast a hole in any of the walls, really,” Nerzogk pointed out.

“You aren’t blowing holes in my ship,” Amara scolded him.

I looked around the ship’s interior at the dunes and the cracks they had entered through, but I didn’t dare take Nerzogk’s side and join him as the target of Amara’s wrath. She led us instead to the nearest airlock as an alternative exit.

Nerzogk and I worked together to pry the unresponsive doors open while Amara and the salvaged core disengaged the locks. It took longer than it would’ve taken to make a hole, as Nerzogk had suggested, to exit through, but we got there eventually.

By the time we exited, the planet was in the grip of night. Stars filled the virgin sky and spectacular auroras erupted across its thin atmosphere. Their cascading light illuminated a barren grey land. Amara and Nerzogk hardly noticed, not breaking their pace to take in the view like I did. I jogged to catch up.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“There’s an expired colony not far from here.”

“A colony under which government?”

“None. It’s expired. That's why we chose this place.”

A sudden wind blasted sand across the landscape, cutting my cheeks. When the wind faded, I had to jog again to catch up to Amara and Nerzogk, both of whom now had their helmets activated. I searched for my helmet, unable to find it before another burst of wind returned to scratch and sting my face. When I figured it out, the necklace morphed around my head, trapping traces of stinging salt against fresh cuts. When the wind faded, I removed my facial shield to wipe away as much salt as possible, then returned the helmet’s thin barrier and again caught up to the two operatives. Nerzogk latched a tether to my suit—their only acknowledgment of my continued distractions.

Amara joined our tethered line when the winds grew more frequent and violent. She pushed the salvaged AI toward me. “Take the lead and let the AI connect to your suit,” she instructed over our comms. “We won’t be able to see the map soon.”

I nodded and hooked the bot onto the back of my suit—an attachment intended for some kind of jet pack. The connection was fuzzy, so I wired the AI into our comms network. With a few adjustments within the comms link, I transmitted the map to share our progress between the three of us. Amara smirked before the wind picked up to obscure our vision. Unseen and silent, she led us slowly closer to the point marked on our map.

When the dust cloud died down and our vision returned to normal, a levitating city marked the midnight horizon. The auroras concentrated above its illuminated spires, indicating a magnetic pole. From the city’s underbelly, a thin, temporary waterfall turned to mist in the wind before reaching the parched land below. Spikes of crystallized salt columns marked the lonely habitat’s perimeter, stretching upward, born from discarded water in the arid desert.

The lights within the city were unanimated. Unlike Kolvek or the Vor-Vardos base, this colony drifted quietly below auroras more lifelike than the habitat itself.

We approached a half-buried ground station beneath the floating city, hidden among enormous salt columns and protected from the harshest elements. Amara and Nerzogk didn’t break pace. I did my best to match their confident strides, keeping an eye out for confrontation.

Amara circled the sand-covered structure. It was a small, square building large enough to fit up to a dozen people. The windows had broken some time long ago, and any desks or furniture that might’ve once inhabited the place were covered by the planet’s persistent dunes.

When Amara found the front of the structure, she took five large steps forward from the door, then knelt and dug through the sand until she uncovered the top of a post. She took out a tool from her belt, and the screen on the post came to life, while the main system running beneath the ground station remained silent.

I moved to help, but Nerzogk swatted away my attempt to connect.

“Not yet,” he warned.

Nerzogk removed the bot holding the ship’s core from my suit, and handed the AI to Amara. She tasked it with running a scan on the link she’d established with the control post. The two of them removed their helmets to keep a closer eye on the datasets mined by the AI, and I continued to keep watch across the barren landscape.

It wasn’t long before Amara paused the bot’s projected readings. She backtracked to a specific code series. When Nerzogk finished double checking her findings, they shared a frown.

“How…sensitive can your connection be, Aviator?” Amara asked.

I joined them on the sand to take a look at the codes. “The Legion?”

“If the Legion didn’t want this ground station used, why didn’t they just destroy it instead of taking the time to bug it?” I asked.

“Ghost colonies have Niribian tech powering their core, it’s one of the reasons these places can stay self-sufficient even after their populations expire.” Amara kept her focus on the hacked ground control database. “These periphery stations don’t rely on the colony’s central power, but the Legion likes to be careful when it comes to Niribian relics. They don’t destroy Niribian structures.”

“Usually they don’t risk entering the lost colonies at all,” Nerzogk added. “But this one is close to their stronghold. It’s not surprising that they would keep tabs on disturbances here.” He shifted through the scan’s data, and the furrow in his scaled brow deepened. “If we had the ship, we’d have the equipment to circumvent this entrance. With our situation as it is, however, we don’t have a lot of options.” He paused when he finished his examination, and his tone lowered. “If you enter this program and make a mistake…we don’t have any way to avoid the swarm that would come.”

“Yeah. No pressure,” I joked while checking the encryption projected by the AI with renewed care. A complex infection lived between the system’s normal operations, but the bug’s connection seemed simple enough to isolate. Especially if we were only concerned with getting the elevator marked by this post to function.

“We just need a lift into the colony, right?” I asked.

“Yep,” Amara nodded. “We’ll figure the rest out from there.”

“Okay. I’ve got it.” Without the life-and-death stakes this would be an easy task. Nerzogk’s warning, however, made me pause before entering the station’s system. I steadied my breath, sought a combat state of mind, activated the elevator’s silent swell of algorithms, and dove in.

The strange essence from the Legion’s corruption misaligned with the system itself. I navigated around the virus, detaching it from the functions it infected. It was a strange electrical dance, with the baetian bug emitting a welcoming musical essence like a siren’s song. A larger mind-like network slumbered under the virus. I figured it must be the swarm referenced by Nerzogk earlier, and I fine-tuned my influence over the system’s algorithmic web to avoid disturbing it.

I removed myself from the station’s system once the infection was contained. The AI returned to check whether or not the danger was cleared. Amara and Nerzogk waited, motionless and hardly breathing. Their anxiety rubbed off on me, causing me to question my work.

When the AI confirmed my success, all three of us let out a relieved sigh. Amara wasted no time in activating the elevator’s controls on the station’s post. A dry storm brewed in the distance, hints of lightning marking the horizon below rippling auroras. The sand below us shook, pulling us down to our knees as the buried platform lifted. We continued to sink until our feet met the platform mesh, raising us against the displaced sand.

On the way up, we passed through the colony’s biosphere ridge, a membrane of condensed air. I instantly breathed easier. The air was crisper, fresher, and more oxygen-rich than the dry air on the planet’s surface. Amara and Nerzogk also seemed to decompress with the change, their shoulders relaxed, and they exchanged a look that said more than I could guess. The elevator finally stopped at the entrance to a surreally empty city. Foliage filled the outer rim where we were, the overgrowth thick at the entrance.

Amara removed her helmet and produced her favorite plasma knife from her belt. The same knife she’d brandished on our first meeting. We followed as she sliced her way through the twined branches that crowded the entryway.

Our progress was slow. When we emerged from the overgrowth, the city’s pristine condition stood in contrast to the entrance. “Those fuckers are thorough.” Amara analyzed our haphazard garden pathway with a frown. “There’s nothing we can do to cover that.”

Nerzogk batted away the last few branches blocking his way out. “The baetians aren’t likely to check this place without cause, but we shouldn’t linger longer than necessary.” The broken bushes scratched against Ali’s attached pod. I cringed, having to remind myself her pod had endured worse.

“Just how close to the Legion are we?” I asked.

“This colony shares the same solar system as Aie-Beta,” Nerzogk answered.

“We didn’t have a lot of options.” Amara shrugged. “The Empire won’t dare to cause a commotion here.”

“And the Legion doesn’t have people stationed here?”

“Why would they?”

“Well, because it’s a colony.”

“Your naivety is cute,” Amara said, ruffling my hair. I froze, stunned by her carefree contact. “There are too many ghost colonies to care about any one of them in particular. They rigged the entry on this one because of its location. To scare wayward scavengers—like ourselves. The support systems are useless thanks to their tampering, so it’s not utilized by anyone and generally ignored by the greater powers. But we have you. Otherwise, we would’ve taken our chances hiding in a nebula field or asteroid cave.”

“What can I do?”

“You can get shit working without tripping the Legion’s traps. Right?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Great. Come on. We need to find a replacement spaceship.”

“There are spaceships just lying around?” I asked incredulously.

“Why wouldn’t there be?” Amara no longer veiled her annoyance at my relentless questions. “Civilian-grade equipment is low priority for both the Empire and Legion.”

Nerzogk set Ali’s pod aside and walked past us to a garden fountain. He washed the salt from his face, then removed his suit and uniform to do the same for his body.

“Lhra, Nerzogk. Some warning would be nice.” Amara looked away from his nude reptilian body with a deep red blush.

“Don’t tell me you’re not dying to do the same.” He laughed and waved me over. After a short hesitance, I joined him. My stinging, cracking skin relished in the relief of cascading water. I cupped the cool liquid in my hands, following Nerzogk’s lead. Until the water touched my lips, I didn’t realize how extremely parched I’d been.

Amara remained unbudged from where she was, covering her eyes and laughing. “I can’t believe you guys. An entire city at your disposal, and you choose to wash up in a garden fountain.”

“Aren’t you gonna join us?” Nerzogk teased her.

“Screw you guys.” She laughed and walked away with her eyes still half-covered. “I’ll find my own… bath. Keep your comms on.”

“Shouldn’t we be more careful not to draw attention?” I asked Nerzogk after Amara left with the salvaged AI.

“Attention? Who’s attention?”

“Whoever lives here. Or the Legion’s surveillance.”

“Did you not see the entrance? No one has been here for generations.”

We finished up and sat along the edge of the fountain. Our salt-crisped Imperial uniforms lay discarded on the fountain edge, unwelcoming after our cleanse. Not to mention we could no longer identify as Imperial. We chose only to wear the inner shorts and dumped the rest aside, then lounged in the grass and waited for our bodies to dry. Nerzogk dropped down with a huff, his massive jade body crushing the greenery. The city throbbed with its silent electric life beyond the garden, its sophistication a sharp contrast to our caveman method of hygiene. Ali’s encased symphony hovered nearby.

“It’s strange, isn’t it?” I asked as I lay next to him. “Being this carefree considering what’s lurking for us out there?”

“It’s not that strange. All the Empire can do here is lurk.” Nerzogk yawned, the fatigue of whatever they’d endured during my recovery catching up to him.

“How long can we risk staying here?”

“There’s not a definite answer to that question.” Nerzogk stretched, then settled into a comfortable position. His leather-jade arms folded above his shoulders in the grass, palms cradling his scale-armored head. His transparent reptilian eyelids closed first, from side to side, before his leather eyelids closed in a way I found more normal, from top to bottom. “At the very least, we’ll be here until we find a method to give us the option of not being here.”

As he nodded off, I watched a multitude of auroras paint through the atmosphere above the colony membrane. The stars seemed foreign, scattered in an unrecognizable pattern. A dense band of them branched across the sky, with very few pinpoints dotting outside the line. Most of the outlying points were not stars at all; they were far-out galaxies condensed into star-like clusters. Below the city's belly, occasional flashes of light were the only hint of the storm passing beneath us. An artificial breeze drifted past and rustled the foliage.

I was sleeping when Amara nudged me. I sprang up, suddenly alert. She put a calming hand on my bare shoulder. “It’s fine. Nothing is wrong. But I need one of us to keep watch in case that changes. Do you mind? I’m exhausted.”

Nerzogk was snoring next to us, a strange guttural sleep-growl.

“Yeah. Of course,” I confirmed.

She handed me some fresh clothes, soft and colorful, unlike the monotonous nano-material uniforms I’d become accustomed to wearing. An amused smile played across her soft lips at my sudden embarrassment. I fiddled with the material and clumsily got dressed. The shirt was as blue as the oceans on this planet and thicker than I was used to, long-sleeved with a high neck that rubbed against the spot where the Empire’s implant used to be. I kept checking for its ominous presence, expecting the control measure I’d become so accustomed to might return at any moment.

Amara read the worry in my expression, offering a soft smile. “We’re okay now, Aviator. Not out of danger, but this level of danger is something we can handle.” Her words echoed Nerzogk’s earlier assurance. Heat filled my cheeks. Shouldn’t I be the one protecting them? Wasn’t I the weapon?

Amara allowed me a quiet moment to steady my nerves. When I spoke, my voice quivered. “You’ve both risked too much. I don’t…I can’t….”

She put a hand up to end my stammering, her eyes tired but with a spark of their usual mischievous charm. “This was our choice. Simple as that.” Her expression turned serious. “I have to admit, though, we will be relying heavily on you from this point forward. And there’s something I have to ask you.” She bit her lip before continuing. “I’m hoping you’ll let me break my promise. I told you I wasn’t going to cover you in biocircuits. But….”

“I’ll do anything to help.” My voice found its strength with the chance to contribute, to find a way to compensate them for the peril they’d put themselves in on my behalf.

“I know you don’t like it. Being…mechanized. I’m sorry to ask.”

I checked the back of my neck, pressing my circuit-tipped fingers against the quiet skin. Still hardly daring to believe the Empire no longer had power over me. No signal answered, no lightning erupted. My panicked heart quieted, and excitement erased the fear I’d long accepted as my norm. A weight lifted from my chest, and I dared to accept the fact of my freedom. “I don’t mind, Amara. I want to be useful. I owe you more than I could ever repay.” I lowered my hand from my neck and looked up at the brilliant aurora-painted sky, thrilled by the possibilities offered by its endless canvas. When my attention returned to the garden, I found sanctuary in Amara’s quizzical gaze and grinned. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

She smiled. “Yes. It is.”

I resisted the urge to check again for the implant, and instead adopted the familiar stance of a soldier. “Do what you can to expand the biocircuit. I’ll make us uncatchable.” I winked at her to shake off my posture’s rigidity, and she stifled a laugh.

“This could be fun,” she said as she cast her eyes upward toward the star-speckled night sky, searching the heavens with experienced eyes, seeing more than I could guess at. Then she lay in the grass on her side, tucking her head into the crook of her elbow, and glanced up at me with heavy eyelids. “It’s good to have you fully onboard, Aviator.” Her voice drifted quietly through the garden, soft as the rustle of foliage in the colony’s stimulated breeze, as if she were already dreaming. “We’ll do more than survive. We’ll thrive. There are countless worlds out there, scattered remnants of humanity. The Empire’s shadow is vast, but it’s not all-encompassing.” The hint of a smile lingered on her lips as she closed her eyes and let exhaustion take over. The speed with which she fell asleep made me smile.

The two of them looked childish and carefree in their slumber, a stark difference from the rugged confidence they exuded while awake.

I sat in the grass next to them, watching over the soft rise and fall of their chests, monitoring the ground-shaking guttural snore coming from between Nerzogk’s leather lips. I traced my biocircuit’s lines, imagining what impact its expansion might have. The thought of further transformation used to terrify me. Now, however, I felt no fear, no anxiety. Whoever—or whatever—I was before this moment no longer mattered. I’d found where I belonged. Right here. As a shield between Amara and Nerzogk and whatever dangers we might face.

The salvaged AI nudged against me. I glanced over to check on Ali’s muted pod hovering next to Amara, making sure the little bot, like the rest of them, was safe. Then I lounged in the grass next to my companions and got to work incorporating myself into the new bot’s network, laying the foundation of our team’s defense while the faint song of Legion traps echoed through the deserted colony around us.