Elpida shut the bunk room hatch. She did not want Amina or Ooni to overhear this conversation.

Rainstorm static droned and drummed in a ceaseless black haze against Pheiri’s hull, a mirror to the dark exhaustion which throbbed at the edge of Elpida’s skull; thunder rumbled kilometres overhead, galvanic fury caged behind the soot-choked skies; engines and reactor purred and gurgled in machine homeostasis, far beneath Elpida’s feet. She turned back to Ilyusha — or Not-Ilyusha — seated on one of the bunks.

Ilyusha’s grey eyes were flat and dead, their molten fires extinguished.

Elpida said: “Who am I talking to?”

Not-Ilyusha shrugged, loose and limp and lacking. Her wrists lay slack over her knees, crimson claws tucked away inside black bionic fingertips.

“Don’t have a name,” she said. “Forgot.”

Elpida said, “I can’t just call you ‘Not Ilyusha’.”

Not-Ilyusha sighed and screwed up her eyes, as if enduring a terrible migraine. “I’m just the girl Ilyusha protects. That’s all I am anymore.”

“No,” Elpida said. “You’re also one of us. One of my—”

Cadre, Howl grunted, inside Elpida’s head.

“—comrades,” Elpida allowed. “That means I also protect you. If you don’t want a name then I won’t force one on you. But this conversation will be easier if I have something to call you.”

Not-Ilyusha peeled back her lips to show clenched teeth. “Noyabrina. Noya. That’ll do.”

“Noyabrina,” Elpida echoed. It was unlike any name she’d ever heard before, but that was hardly new. “Thank you, Noya. May I sit down?”

Noya relaxed her face and opened her eyes, cold and distant, mouth a tired line. She had none of Illy’s flame. She shrugged.

Elpida sat down on the opposite bunk. The beds were quite small — long enough for most people to stretch out on the scratchy blue sheets, but Elpida doubted she would be able to sleep here, unless she curled up on her side. The cramped space between the mattress and the underside of the next bunk required her to lean forward, which put pressure on the stitches in her gut. But sitting next to Noyabrina — or Ilyusha — would require her to move Illy’s shotgun. Noyabrina seemed uninterested in the weapon, but Elpida did not want to send the wrong message by relocating the firearm beyond Illy’s reach.

Elpida said: “You don’t agree with my decisions regarding Ooni.”

It was not a question. Elpida waited.

Raindrops drummed on Pheiri’s hull. Internal air recyclers hummed, hidden behind the metal walls. Noya’s grey eyes left Elpida’s face and drifted sideways. She stared at nothing.

Eventually Noyabrina spoke, in a slow, low, half-dead growl: “Said it yourself, Elpida. People like her killed all your sisters. Killed everyone. That’s what they do. People just like her killed everyone. Overran the city, surrounded the soldiers, herded them away. Then they burned us out, like rats. They put all my friends in a barn and set it on fire. Strung up my parents. Still remember my father’s body swinging in the wind. Can’t remember my name, but I remember that.” Her voice ground on and on, quiet but unstoppable. “Watched Stefaniya and Renat dig their own graves. Couldn’t do anything because I’d run away. They marched everyone else off, to go be slaves, help make guns and tanks to kill the rest of us. Only ones who survived were the ones who ran. We watched from the woods. Ran away. Lived in the woods like animals. Ate the dead, moss, grass. Died all the same.”

Elpida stayed quiet. She listened.

Noya’s lips began to curl upward in a smile — and there was Ilyusha, peeking through. “Came back with guns and bombs of our own — fuck ‘em up. Cut the rail lines. Blow up the reptiles. Burn them in their trains, dynamite their command posts, garotte their leaders. How’d you like it? Herded into a corner and machine gunned? We surrender, we surrender, wah wah wah.” Ilyusha mimed putting her hands up, then exploded in a shout — at Elpida: “Fuck you!”

The anger vanished instantly. So did Ilyusha. Noya was back, calm and dead eyed in the black static.

Noya said: “People like her. Reptiles and snakes. People wearing skulls.”

Elpida waited, to be certain that Noya was finished. Then she said: “Thank you.”

Noya snorted. “For what?”

“For doing your best to explain. I know this isn’t easy. I’m sorry. I know how I feel about my sisters, and what the Covenanters did to us. It sounds like the same thing happened to you.”

Noya said: “Then why don’t you shoot the reptile?”

Elpida said, “Why don’t you?”

Noyabrina frowned; that was Ilyusha’s mannerism, blurring the boundary. “What?”

Elpida explained. “I can’t stop you — Noya, or Illy, either or both of you. I’m not certain I would prevail in a close-quarters struggle against you, even when uninjured and well rested. Your bionics give you an incredible advantage.” She nodded at Ilyusha’s bionic limbs and the massive red-and-black tail coiled behind her on the bunk, the tip a shining scarlet spike. “You’re fast and strong and clever. I’m exhausted. I need sleep so badly that even sitting down is risky. I can’t move fast with this stomach wound. If you picked up that shotgun and ran to the infirmary, I couldn’t stop you from killing both Ooni and Pira.” Elpida smiled. “And there’s no military discipline here. You wouldn’t be punished. I wouldn’t be able to do so even if I wanted. The others wouldn’t find much fault with you. Maybe Melyn, seeing as she worked for hours to save Pira’s life, but nobody else.” Elpida shrugged. “The only thing holding you back is my orders. And those are just words.”

Noyabrina’s dead grey eyes slid sideways, off Elpida. “Not sure about Pira,” she said. “Shot you in the gut, but that was a mistake. Stupid. Idiot. Naive. Liability. Don’t have to shoot her though.”

Elpida made no effort to hide her surprise. “She used to be a Death’s Head too, didn’t she?”

Noya shrugged. “Used to be. Now she won’t eat.”

Elpida said, “That matters, yes.”

Noya nodded. “Can’t fake it. Doesn’t want to eat. No more cannibalism. Mm.”

“So, Pira left the Death’s Heads, and that counts. Ooni just did the same. She’s not a Death’s Head anymore either.”

Noya’s upper lip curled with disgust — more Ilyusha again. “She was one of them yesterday. Full of excuses, crocodile tears, justifications. We’ve been here as long as her. Didn’t feel the need to ink a skull on our skin.” Noya reached up with one hand and tapped her own chest, indicating the crescent-and-line symbol that Ilyusha had drawn on her torn tomb-grey t-shirt. “Chose this instead. There’s always a choice.”

“There is,” Elpida said. “But none of that answers my question. Why haven’t you shot her?”

Noya’s eyes sank. She stared at the gunmetal grey floor. “Ilyusha adores you. Trusts your judgement. Thinks you’re right. Thinks you can protect me too. But this makes her sick.”

Elpida nodded. She took a deep breath, and took a gamble.

She stood up and turned towards the bunks filled with equipment. She located and retrieved her submachine gun and the magazine; she had to go down on one knee rather than bend forward, to minimise the strain on her gut wound. Her mind throbbed with black static as she rose. She wavered for a moment, waiting for the pain to ebb, and for her vision to clear. Then she checked the weapon: the magazine had been properly removed and the chamber cleared. She made sure the safety was on, inserted the magazine, selected single-shot mode, and then pulled the charging handle back to chamber a round. She looped the strap over her shoulder and turned back to Ilyusha-Noyabrina.

Howl growled: Elps. What the fuck are you doing?

Proving my commitment.

Elpida! No! Don’t fucking do this! Stop!

Elpida ignored Howl.

Noya was frowning again — or was that Illy? Elpida could not quite tell where one set of mannerisms ended and the other began.

Elpida said: “Do you trust them?”

Noya grunted. “Eh?”

“Ooni and Pira. Do you trust them?”

Noya showed her teeth. “Fuck no. Fuck—”

Elpida interrupted: “Think carefully before you answer. This is a very specific and precise question. Do you believe that Ooni and Pira are now on our side? Or do you believe that either of them will betray us for the Death’s Heads? After everything you heard in there, do you believe Ooni was lying, or pretending, or trying to mislead us?”

Noya frowned hard, unable to reply.

Elpida continued: “I need you to respond. And I need you to tell me the truth.”

“What … what are you gonna do?”

Elpida’s mind was full of static and the sound of Howl screaming and raging, trying to drown out her thoughts. The air was full of rainstorm haze. She tasted the iron tang of blood in her mouth.

Elpida said: “If you say yes — if you think Ooni is lying, or that she presents a danger to us, or that she plans to betray us, or will plan to betray us in the future — then I will go in there right now and shoot her myself. Give me your honest answer. Say yes, and she dies, right now.”

Noya stared, mouth open, eyes wide.

Elpida said: “Do you think I’m wrong? Yes, or no.”

Noyabrina looked away, gritting her teeth. “No. No.”

Elpida took a deep breath. She let it out slowly. She double-checked the safety on her submachine gun, ejected the chambered round from the breach, caught it in one hand, and reset the charging handle. She sat back down on the bunk and placed her firearm to one side.

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

Fucking hell, Elps! Howl raged in the back of her mind. You made Ooni one of yours! You made a fucking promise! You bitch, you were really gonna do it! Fuck!

Of course I was, Howl. Shut up.

Noya looked up. She ran a shaking hand through her messy blonde hair. “You really would have shot her. Wouldn’t you? If I’d said yes.”

Elpida opened her hand. Ooni’s bullet lay on her palm. “I don’t want to kill Ooni. I made a promise to her. Two promises, really. That Pira has a place in Telokopolis, and so does Ooni. What kind of Commander would I be if I broke those promises of solidarity?”

Noya said, “But—”

“But if you don’t trust them, after everything you heard, then I will take responsibility. Right now I believe that the correct option is to allow Ooni to join us, and deal with Pira’s mistaken betrayal as a matter of internal discipline and personal history. But if the opposite is necessary, I will do that instead. I need you to understand, Noyabrina, or Ilyusha, or both of you. To keep this—”

Cadre! Howl snapped, inside Elpida’s mind.

Elpida relented. “To keep this cadre together, I will become whatever kind of monster is necessary.”

Howl said: Elps. Fucking hell. You-

I kept you and the cadre safe, Howl. It’s what I always did. You only died because I refused to do what needed to be done, because I could not keep us together. This time, for these comrades — for this cadre? No. I will do anything. Shut up and get back in line.

Howl growled and fell silent.

Noyabrina just stared, wide-eyed.

Elpida said, “Do I need to prove myself by bringing you Death’s Head skulls? I can do that. If I get lucky, I’ll bring you Yola’s head.”

Noya winced. She didn’t like that. “You would, wouldn’t you?”

“I will. Do you want heads?”

“ … nah.” Noyabrina looked uncomfortable. “Ilyusha, maybe. She—”

Crump-crump! Crump! Crack!

A trio of high-calibre autocannon shots rang out, high up on Pheiri’s exterior hull, punctuated by the distant shatter of a concrete wall, tearing through the static of the rain. Noyabrina gasped and flinched and pressed her bionic hands over her ears. Elpida braced one hand against the upper bunk and one against the mattress below.

Elpida waited, but this time there was no slew to the side, no whirring of dozens of tracks, no deep-pulse throb of engine power from Pheiri’s guts. Seconds ticked by. Pheiri went clunk-clunk, cycling in fresh rounds. The sound was almost drowned out by the rain.

Elpida relaxed her grip and opened her palm again. Ooni’s bullet was still there.

Across the tiny, cramped bunk room, Noyabrina’s eyes were screwed up tight. She hissed through her teeth: “Ilyusha, please.”

Elpida placed the bullet to one side, then reached across the narrow gap between the bunks and took Noya’s shoulder. She squeezed.

Elpida said, “Let me protect you too.”

Noya’s face shifted. Her fear vanished. She rolled her shoulders and cracked her neck; Elpida let go and withdrew her hand. Noya slid her crimson claws from her bionic black fingertips and flexed her foot-talons, scraping across the bed. Her tail coiled upward and tapped the underside of the bunk above. She opened molten grey eyes. Her pale white face and blonde hair were framed by gunmetal walls and flaking cream paint.

Ilyusha said: “Hey.”

“Illy?” Elpida asked.

“Mm.”

“Is Noya still there? Or is it just you now?”

Ilyusha shrugged. Her tail bobbed. “Always here. Just behind.”

Elpida nodded; she knew she needed to explain herself further, but there was a question she needed to ask before she lost the privacy of this moment. She said: “Illy, you and Noya, was one of you the original? Did the other come into being after you were resurrected for the first time? Here, in this, in the nanomachine ecosystem?”

Ilyusha shook her head. “We’re like this from before. She got too scared, so I came along.” Ilyusha flashed an evil grin and waggled the crimson claws on one hand. “To pull out reptile guts.”

Elpida nodded. “Okay. Thank you.”

Doubting me, huh? Howl purred in the back of Elpida’s head.

Ilyusha said, “And you? You’re not alone in there, Elpi.”

Elpida pulled an awkward smile; she did not want Ilyusha to doubt her competence or sanity, but she couldn’t hide what had happened earlier. Amina and Ilyusha and Ooni had all heard the shift in her voice when Howl had spoken through her mouth.

“Yes,” Elpida admitted. “I’m not alone in here. There’s a voice in my head. Howl. She’s one of my dead sisters.”

Ilyusha bobbed her head sideways. “Say hi?”

Howl butted in, took control of Elpida’s voice, and said: “Heya bitch-tits. Nice claws.”

Ilyusha snorted, grinned, and made her claws slide in and out with a shick-shick sound.

Elpida cleared her throat. “Stop it, Howl. Illy, I’m not sure if Howl is real, or if I somehow made her up. Or if she’s a product of nanomachine self-modification in my brain. I don’t know, that’s why I had to ask. I only started hearing her after the Death’s Heads took me captive.”

At the mention of the Death’s Heads Ilyusha’s expression fell into a disgusted sneer.

Elpida took a deep breath, and said: “For the record, Illy, I think you have a point.”

“Not sharp enough to shoot the reptile, huh?”

“No,” Elpida said. “Not quite. But you’re still correct. I wouldn’t have chosen to recruit Ooni, but I made a promise in the heat of the moment, to get Pira out of there, to stop the two of them from shooting each other in some suicide pact. Now I need to keep that promise.”

“Promises to reptile fucks,” Ilyusha growled.

Elpida sighed. “Would I have made that promise if she wasn’t involved with Pira? I doubt it. If Ooni was more like Yola — Amina told you about Yola, yes? — then would I just shoot her? Probably. But whatever Ooni believed, she believes in Pira more. She loves Pira, and that was more important to her than the Death’s Heads.”

Ilyusha just snorted.

Elpida went on, partly to herself: “In an ideal situation, back in Telokopolis, we would have locked up all the Covenanters and shown them why they were wrong. But that wasn’t an ideal situation, we didn’t have control, they did. And this isn’t an ideal situation either. We’re a tiny band of nobodies, Illy. We have no ties to each other, only that we woke up alongside each other’s coffins. There is very little to hold us together.”

Ilyusha frowned. “Not true. Not true! You’re the Commander!”

Elpida made a gentle gesture with one hand. “And that’s why I don’t want to shoot her. If I kill Ooni, I have to kill Pira too. If we start turning on each other, eating each other, then it won’t matter that we’ve found Pheiri, it won’t matter that we’re protected, and well-armed. It won’t even matter if we get the combat frame up and moving. If we start eating each other, then this cadre, we’re over, we’re done.”

Ilyusha looked down. She traced patterns on the blue bunk room blanket with the tip of a claw.

“And we do need Pira,” Elpida said.

Ilyusha looked up and squinted. “Mm?”

Elpida considered lying; instead, she told the truth.

“Illy, I haven’t told this to anybody else, not yet. When I woke up inside the resurrection coffin, there was a message, on the tiny screen inside. It was on my left, and I recall it perfectly. It said: ‘A soldier? Don’t make me laugh, dear. At my age, laughing hurts like hell. You’ll eat each other before the end, like all the rest.’ Then I blinked and it changed. It said: ‘Good luck, dead thing’.”

Ilyusha just grunted. “Huh.”

Elpida repeated the relevant line: “‘You’ll eat each other before the end, like all the rest.’ And that — that I refuse to do. I still don’t know who or what sent that message. Maybe the graveworm, perhaps the Necromancer who stopped me up on the combat frame, maybe something else. But I know for absolute certain that I am not going to let us eat each other. And Pira? Pira refuses to eat.”

“Mmmmmm,” Ilyusha grunted, twisting her lips together.

“She’s onto something,” Elpida said. “I just don’t know what yet.”

“Mm. Don’t eat, can’t live. I don’t see it.” Ilyusha shook her head.

Elpida smiled. “Same here. Maybe if she’s right about the nanomachine production inside the graveworm, maybe that’s a way out of this cycle. Maybe.” Elpida tried to straighten up on the edge of the bunk, but the space was too small for her height. Where was she going to bed down in the long term? In the infirmary? The control cockpit? She had no idea. She still needed to explore the inside of Pheiri’s structure, in detail, preferably with Melyn to help. She went on: “Plus, in practical terms, Pira is a hell of a fighter. If we’re going to survive, I want her with us, I want her skills and her knowledge. Her courage too. She more than proved herself with the coilgun back there.”

Ilyusha flashed her teeth. “Was cool shit. She’s a fucking idiot shit-fuck stupid bitch. But yeah. ‘Kay.”

Elpida did want Pira, for her skills, her knowledge, her comradeship — but also for something less well defined, which Elpida tried not to think about too hard. She had not forgotten the fistfight with Pira, the rush and pleasure of close quarters combat, the feeling of pinning Pira to the ground, the sheer challenge that Pira had posed, and the moment of sexual friction which passed between them. Elpida respected Pira on a level she could not quite put into words, despite the gut wound. Ooni was necessary, but Pira was desired. Elpida knew it was not wise to act on that desire; even Telokopolan civilians and Legion soldiers did not share the kinds of bonds that the cadre had with each other. Her new comrades came from societies and time periods where that may seem even more alien.

But if Noyabrina had said yes, and Elpida had kept her word, she was not certain that part of herself would have survived executing Pira.

She wanted Illy too. And she did not have to leave that unspoken.

“Ilyusha,” she said out loud. “You’re a hell of a fighter too. I want you with us. With me. That’s why I had this talk with you. I value your trust, your trust in my judgement, and your arms at my side. I need you with us. Even if we barely know each other.”

Ilyusha grinned back. She flexed her crimson claws. Her tail did a little bob. She finally stood up from the bunk. Her metal talons clicked against the floor as she stretched out her bionic arms and rolled her shoulders.

Elpida went on. “I do have a question for you. If you’ve been around, doing this for such a long time, then why are you so closed-lipped?”

Illy shrugged, showing her teeth. “Never paid attention. Don’t want to think about it. Don’t want to think.”

“Fair enough. What about that?” Elpida pointed at the symbol on Ilyusha’s t-shirt, the crescent-and-line, scrawled in green camo paint. “What does it mean? I doubt Ooni’s going to give me an accurate answer, though I don’t think she’ll lie on purpose.”

Ilyusha looked down at the symbol on her own slender chest. “Means we’re all together.”

“Yeah?”

“Means … ” Illy raised her eyes and flashed her teeth. “Means Telokopolis rejects nobody? Right?”

Elpida sighed and smiled; Ilyusha had adapted the meaning. If she wanted more information she would probably need to ask Serin — assuming the sniper would attempt to make contact again. “Right.”

“Elpi, what now?”

“Ah? What now?”

Ilyusha flexed her fingers, making her claws go shick-shick. She tilted her head and waited — for orders.

“Oh,” Elpida said. “Right. What do we do now. Good question.”

Elpida’s body felt heavy as a sack of bricks, her limbs full of lead, her head stuffed with black steel wool. She cast her eyes up and around, over the gunmetal grey and flaking remnants of cream coloured paint. She was exhausted, but she was still the Commander.

She said: “We’ve found this crawler — Pheiri. Or he found us? Yeah, that’s better. We need to get Kagami and Vicky back. We should examine the dead Necromancer. And I must talk to that pilot, see if we can do anything for her. I don’t know what though. We need an atmospheric hardshell, but even if we had one, how would we get her into it? How could we isolate her from the nanomachines in the air itself?” Elpida shook her head. Ilyusha just watched. “Other than survival, I don’t know, Illy. Do we drive off into the city, protected inside Pheiri? Do we strike towards the graveworm, hoping to get inside? Can we raise the combat frame? I don’t know. I need more intel. I need a lot more intel. And advice.”

“Pheiri,” Illy grunted.

Elpida nodded. “Yes. He’s got a lot more to tell me, if I know how to ask. And he has a say, too. But right now I need to sleep. I really need to sleep. If I don’t rest, I’m going to fall down sooner or later. And if I sleep, I need to know that everyone here is safe. Understand?”

Ilyusha pulled a grimace. “Won’t shoot Ooni. Fine.”

Elpida shook her head. “That’s not enough. Ilyusha, while I sleep, you’re in charge.”

Ilyusha grimaced harder. Teeth together. Brow furrowed. “Yeah?”

“Yes, I mean it. Pheiri’s also in charge, yes, but you’re in charge of making sure things are safe on the inside. Watch Ooni, but don’t hurt her. Look after Amina. Make sure Atyle doesn’t wander off. Check on Pira. And talk with Melyn and Hafina, if you can. You need to know them, too. We all do.” Elpida picked up the bullet from where she’d left it on the thin blue blanket. She held it out to Illy. “I mean it, Ilyusha. I’m going to sleep, I can’t hold off much longer. You’re in charge. I trust you. You’re a good girl.”

Ilyusha stared at the bullet in Elpida’s hand, then at Elpida’s face, then back to the bullet.

Then Illy broke into an evil grin.

Ha! Howl barked. Told you she was like me. Were you trying to provoke this on purpose?

Elpida did not understand. Provoke what?

Ilyusha reached forward with one black-and-red bionic hand — claws out. But not for the bullet. She reached for Elpida’s face.

Razor-sharp bionic claws slid up Elpida’s cheeks, cupping her chin with augmetic strength, but gently, so very gently, gliding across the skin without drawing blood. Her fingers tightened on Elpida’s jaw, holding her in place.

Ilyusha leaned in — quick and sharp and rough — and planted a sudden kiss on Elpida’s lips.

Haha! Howl barked inside Elpida’s head. Conquered you fast, didn’t she!?

The attack withdrew as quickly as it had started. Ilyusha let go and straightened up. She plucked the bullet from Elpida’s hand and made it disappear inside her clothes. Then she whirled, tail banging on the edges of the bunks, and scooped up her shotgun. She pumped the action to empty the breach — click-click click-click click-click — dropping shells into the palm of her bionic hand. She shoved the shells into her clothing, to join Ooni’s bullet.

Ilyusha swung the now empty weapon upward and rested the barrel over her shoulder. She beamed with pride.

“Sleep good, Commander,” Ilyusha said. “I’ll watch the girls.”