so much for two parts! shorter piece tonight to bridge into the conclusion.

~

'You can call me Kelly if you like.'

'Is that even . . .' She flapped a hand. 'Fine. Kelly. Who used this suit before me?'

'Navigation specialist Orpicea.'

Orpicea tripped over a trailing length of wire. It tore crackling out of its socket. Red lights blinked awake across the wall. 'Are you serious?'

'I selected that one especially,' the ship said. It sounded hurt. 'You don't see a coincidence like that every day.'

'Well—no,' said Orpicea, leaning over the communications terminal. The hailing light pulsed. 'That's . . . no, that's fine. I can work with that. What was her first name?'

She listened, then nodded once and—after a quiet, inhaling moment—accepted the hail.

When the conversation was over Orpicea terminated the link and dashed over to the pile of metal she'd left in seizures on the floor. Oh, this was bad timing. The worst. She reattached it to her suit's power, properly regulated this time, and after some hasty fiddling the drone stopped twitching. Then it flung her across the room. She slammed into a console, heard its display crack, and with a grunt flopped to the floor on the other side. Her suit had absorbed most of the impact, but it'd still knocked the breath out of her.

'Wait,' she wheezed. The machine said nothing, striding towards her. She heard its footfalls through her suit, clinking underwater vibrations on the deck. 'A patrol's coming.'

'Good,' it said. 'I'm sure they'll be very interested to hear about your commandeering attempt.'

She clambered backward. 'Right back at you.'

The drone stuttered to a halt. A frantic smile cracked her lips and she picked herself up off the floor. 'Play along, drone,' she said, 'and maybe we'll both walk away from this.'