“Then I’d better not injure myself,” Peony retorted. “How are we doing for time?”

  “They will be at the breach in forty-three minutes. It will take the nanites thirty minutes to complete their reprogramming, and the gel…”

  “Fifteen minutes,” Peony finished for her. “Five to start flowing, and then ten to reach the breach…”

  She paused, realizing she didn’t know how long it would take the gel to move from the tanks to the damaged section.

  “Seven to the breach,” the Calliope supplied. “Three to the bulkhead.”

  “But neither will be sealed by the time they reach you,” Peony protested.

  “It will not be my fault if they decided to attempt to pass through the gel as it seals the breach,” the Calliope replied grimly, and Peony caught echoes of Astraya in the ship’s tones.

  It begins, she thought and wondered what the outcome would be.

  A morally gray AI in a ship’s skin… It wasn’t something she really wanted to contemplate, and she wondered if Odyssey would be able to present a solution that would be acceptable to the ship, and to her, because a reboot wasn’t it.

  Astraya, she thought. What have you done?

  If the agent caught that thought, she didn’t answer, and Peony focused on racing toward the next corner as fast as she could.

  “Tell me I’m close,” she ordered the Calliope, as she scrambled for traction.

  “It won’t matter how close you are if you drop those canisters,” the ship huffed.

  “Just tell me,” Peony snarled.

  “One more left, then the panel directly ahead,” the Calliope replied. “It will be open, lit and waiting.”

  “Understood,” Peony replied, and focused on running.

  She took the next turn too fast and stumbled.

  “Careful!” the Calliope warned.

  Peony didn’t dignify that with an answer, focusing instead on retaining her footing and getting back up to speed.

  “Careful!” the Calliope snapped, again, as she neared the panel.

  “Stop your freaking,” Peony rapped back, setting her feet and sliding the last few meters to come to a halt in front of the panel.

  It popped open as she arrived, the Calliope not saying a word as Peony inserted the first canister.

  “Where’s the next one got to go?” she asked, as soon as she was done.

  “There is a rather large breach in engineering,” the ship replied.

  A cabinet snapped open to Peony’s left.

  “And you will need a new air tank before you start,” the ship reminded her. “You are running on fumes.”

  I’m doing more than that, Peony thought, quietly surprised the ship hadn’t noticed her holding her breath for the last corridor. She took a breath, now, noticing the red light blinking on the tank as she slipped it from her shoulders.

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  “There is a HUD to your left,” the Calliope informed her. “I can communicate your path better, that way.”

  Peony nodded, and picked it up, taking a satchel and sliding the gel canister into it. She wanted to grab a second breather, but had no way to carry it that wouldn’t interfere with her speed.

  “Hit me,” she told the ship, rising from the crouch she’d taken to ransack the cabinet.

  “If I do that, you will not be able to get where I need you to go.” The Calliope sounded completely baffled.

  The ship’s confusion startled a bark of laughter out of her, and Peony hastened to explain.

  “I meant show me where I need to go next; I’m ready.”

  “Then why not say that? What has your terminology to do with asking for direction?”

  “Later, Calliope,” she reminded the ship. “We need to hurry”

  “You need to hurry,” the ship huffed. “I am already where I need to be.”

  “And where are our intruders?” Peony pressed, “And how is Astraya managing?”

  “Astraya has summoned the help we need, and the Caustic Call is desperately trying to silence her beacon. Since the signal is coming from the drones I have launched, the Caustic does not have a solid target. ‘Our’ intruders are on the last section of hill and will reach the breach soon. You need to get to the tank before then.”

  The floor lit briefly and Peony took off running. Even after the lights went out, she was following the map left in her HUD, her feet unerringly taking her in the direction she needed to go.

  The arrow that flared ahead of her, was just in time for her to be able to alter her direction without slamming into the wall. The trip to engineering was a nightmare of twists and turns, and Peony knew her air tank was flashing red as she slammed the next canister home.

  “Where…to…next…?” she panted. “And…areyou…secure?”

  “They did not make it through the breach,” the Calliope answered, lighting up an emergency cabinet and popping the door.

  “But they tried,” Peony answered, grabbing the next tank and changing the empty one out. “Which way to the command center?”

  “You will not make it to the command center,” the Calliope told her.

  “What?” Peony shouted. “Why?”

  “Because the Caustic just popped a shuttle and that thing is boosting this way. The top decks will be in missile range before you can reach them.”

  Peony took a swift breath, then tried to force her breathing to slow. “What can I do?”

  “You can let me out of the pod,” Astraya suggested, “Since this is what I was trained to do…and you can take my place, or fight alongside me. The Sugarsides won’t be able to get anyone to us before the Caustic’s people reach us, and they’ll be trying to unplug Calliope as their first and only priority. I can help protect her, but only if I’m outside the pod.”

  “And her systems?” Peony wanted to know.

  “I can protect those while I fight,” Astraya assured her.

  “And I can focus on counter-intrusion, if I know you are taking care of my shell’s security,” the Calliope put in.

  “So, the message got through?” Peony asked, knowing it must have, but needing the comfort of a solid answer.

  “The message got through,” the Calliope told her, “And the gel has started flowing to the breach. Our intruders were not aware of our time constraints and chose to have a rest break before completing the last stretch of hill to my hull.”

  “Thank the stars for small mercies,” Peony replied, then paused. “So, will you?”

  “Will I what?” the Calliope asked.

  “Be releasing Agent Astraya?” Peony asked. “We need her.”

  “Are you telling me you trust her near my hardware?” the Calliope asked, her words at odds with what she’d said before.

  “We have to,” Peony told the ship. “Besides, you let her in your much more sensitive software. I don’t see what the problem is…”

  “Her problem is that she needs to shut down before her systems perform the shut down for her,” Astraya interrupted.

  “And, if you aren’t going to go into stasis, then you will need life support,” the Calliope reluctantly admitted.

  "How many of the emergency cabinets have been tapped?” Peony asked, and the map in her HUD lit with over a hundred points of light. “Then I’ll be fine. It’s you, I’m worried about. I don’t want to lose you.”

  “Even though I’m just a computer that’s too big for my britches?” the Calliope asked, and Peony frowned.

  “Who called you that?” she demanded.

  “It’s something I heard the shuttle refer to me as. Apparently, they need to make sure they ‘take care of me.’”

  Peony frowned, thinking hard and fast.

  “Astraya,” she called. “Your pod has a fairly direct connection to the Sugarsides, right?”

  “Why do you ask?” Astraya sounded suspicious.

  “Because I want to have the Calliope upload a backup of herself while she has time,” Peony said. “I don’t want to lose her.”

  Silence answered her, then Astraya cleared her throat.

  “You know that’s no guarantee she’ll stay the same intelligence you know, don’t you?”

  “I didn’t,” Peony admitted. “But I’m willing to take the risk, regardless.”