“Take the gel and reintroduce it to the tank,” the Calliope instructed. “I have programmed the nanites to share their new operational parameters.”

  “There’s a catch, isn’t there?” Peony asked, knowing there had to be.

  “The built-in safety measures mean the gel tanks servicing different sectors of the ship are not interconnected. You’ll have to…”

  “I’ll have to introduce the gel to each section,” Peony concluded, not letting the ship finish.

  “Correct,” the Calliope confirmed.

  “Starting with the breach our friends are trying to enter,” Peony continued.

  “Correct, but I fear you will not reach it in time to introduce the next batch of gel and have the nanites undertake the necessary transmission.”

  “What if I run?” Peony asked. “And use this batch?”

  She sensed the Calliope’s hesitation, then the ship responded.

  “Follow the lights, while I create the next batch.”

  “You can’t transmit the new coding to the nanites already in the tanks?” Peony asked.

  “It would take time and use resources I require in order to defend myself,” the Calliope responded. “But the system will share the updated data on each ship level. I only need you to introduce the nanites to two levels more—this one, and engineering. All other levels are beyond compromise, until the Caustic Call arrives with its Marine units.

  “And Odyssey will need a way in if they are to hold your decks as their own until another ship arrives,” Astraya added.

  “And until that happens, isn’t the agent sufficient for defending you?” Peony challenged the ship. “Isn’t that what you assigned her to do?”

  “I merely assigned her to monitor my systems and defend them against external threats,” the ship answered.

  “A bit like telling someone to ‘mind the shuttle?’” Peony asked.

  “I don’t understand the reference,” the Calliope said, and Peony sighed.

  “Remind me to explain it later. For now, you need to see if the agent is able to take the security procedures she has in the protocols and defend you with whatever measures she is able to access,” she told the ship.

  To her relief, the Calliope didn’t argue, and another strip of lights lit the floor.

  “Follow those,” the ship instructed, “And do not drop the gel.”

  “Understood,” Peony responded, coming fully out of her head to focus on her environment.

  Now she didn’t have the internal conversation to distract her, she noticed signs that not everything was going well for the ship. The overhead lights flickered, and the air around her was still. There was nothing of the hum she’d been used to when she’d traversed these same corridors in space, and the floor lay tilted beneath her feet.

  The way the overhead lights tended to soft butter yellows worried her.

  “Calliope?” she asked. “What’s your power supply like?”

  “It will be sufficient for the tasks required,” the ship assured her.

  “And your survival?” Peony asked, guessing at what the ship might not be telling her.

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  “The data that makes me a viable individual is stored on the ship’s drives,” the Calliope answered.

  “You’re dying?” Peony demanded, the realization hitting hard.

  “I am not dying,” the ship retorted. “I am merely shutting down, and I have sufficient power to do that safely.”

  “Then why did you need me here?” Peony asked. “Why bother with…”

  She stopped. In hindsight, it was obvious why the ship needed her aboard and needed to seal its hull. Once it had shut down, it would have no way of defending itself. The agent’s pod would ensure Astraya’s survival without it, since it had been designed with long sojourns in space in mind, but the ship itself would need to shut down in order to preserve its data, including the memory and programming that contained its sense of self…and even then, it wasn’t guaranteed she would survive completely intact on re-boot.

  There was nothing to say to that, and only one piece of information that was relevant beyond it.

  “How long?”

  “Taking into account the need to reroute the power to the gel tanks in order to harden my hull, the need to over-ride the physical safety mechanisms on each access hatch in order to prevent forced entry, and your oxygen requirements…”

  “Are all the chairs in the command center podded?” Peony asked.

  “Those that were have been successfully jettisoned,” the ship informed her. “Only the auxiliary seats remain.”

  “Good,” Peony replied, coming to a rapid halt beside one of the emergency cabinets spaced throughout the ship. “Turn off the overhead lights and mark the corridors I need to take with a single light at the turn point.”

  “But…” the Calliope began, falling silent as Peony opened the cabinet and pulled out a headlamp, which she secured with a few practiced moves. She also grabbed a breather and air tank.

  “And turn off the atmospherics,” she ordered. “There should be enough emergency supplies for me to get the job done and see me into a pod.”

  “Why did I not consider this as a possibility?” the Calliope asked.

  “Because I’m part of your crew and emergency drills have their uses,” she said aloud, more to hear the sound of her voice…or any sound… Her ears ached, searching for more sound than the sound of her own footsteps.

  “I agree,” the Calliope responded, and the lights overhead went out. “And this will give me more time to enact a proper shut-down.”

  Enact a proper shut-down? Peony wondered, pulling on the breathing pack. “Why would you shut down any other way?”

  “To give you the time you needed to bring the physical protection on-line…and then to reach a pod in the command center,” the Calliope replied.

  “There isn’t one closer?” Peony asked. “Don’t the other sections have emergency pods?”

  “None that are unoccupied,” the Calliope informed her, and Peony glanced at the nearest pick-up, almost losing her footing.

  “What do you mean?” she asked, pulling the mask over her face and starting the flow.

  “I mean, I had jettisoned most of the colony pods and the first of the crew pods, and was preparing to jettison more crew, when a second transmission came through that raised safety concerns. While I could not call back the pods I had already released, I could refrain from releasing more. The occupied pods are still on board.”

  “Which is the other reason you need to secure the hull,” Peony concluded, giving herself a moment to adjust to breathing via the mask.

  “Correct,” the Calliope replied. “If you could move a little faster…”

  Peony started to jog, the semi-darkness more disorienting than she wanted to admit. The light strip guiding her followed seconds later.

  “Now, shut down the atmospherics,” Peony instructed, noting the Calliope hadn’t done it, yet, “And unlock the emergency cabinets. There should be enough breathing packs for me to get done what needs doing.”

  “And it will make it more difficult for those seeking entry,” the ship added, sounding pleased with the solution. Her voice darkened. “Be warned, the air will become unbreathable within an hour after each section is sealed.”

  “I thought there were more reserves than that,” Peony argued.

  “There are,” the ship confirmed, “But there won’t be once I have vented each space.”

  “We’re supposed to be trying to preserve your power, not placing a greater strain on your systems,” Peony protested.

  “I can undertake the venting as part of the shut-down procedure,” the ship reassured her.

  Liar, Peony thought, but didn’t say. The Calliope’s mind was made up, and if the ship believed this would provide greater protection for those still podded inside her, then there’d be no altering her decision.

  She reached the corner and looked for the next marker. Seeing a distant glimmer, she pushed into a sprint.

  “If you continue to move at that pace, you will soon exhaust your breather,” the ship observed.

  “Light the next cabinet I need,” Peony snapped back.

  “Confirmed,” the ship agreed, and Peony gave an internal sigh of relief that she wasn’t going to have to argue for it.

  As the corner got closer, she angled her approach and then turned, sliding her feet so she hit the wall, and bounced off it into another run.

  “Are you going to do that for every corner?” the ship asked, and Peony laughed.

  “It’s faster.”

  “Not if you injure yourself,” the ship warned.