CAPTAIN BAZ SHOUTS, “INCOMING!”

Noemi steers sharply downward, spiraling through the twisted metal remains of newly destroyed mechs. But the Damocles ships keep spitting out more and more of them—far too many for her squadron to handle. Only the Masada Run volunteers came out today, only to practice. They weren’t planning to fight a full mech assault, and by now it shows.

The mechs are everywhere, their oversize exoskeleton attack suits streaking through the battered ships of her squadron like a meteor shower raining fire. As they approach, the exosuits unfold from metal-beamed, sharp-edged pseudo-vessels into monstrous, metal-limbed creatures capable of smashing through the Genesis lines as if they were punching through paper.

Every once in a while, as one of them zooms past her ship, Noemi gets a glimpse of the mechs themselves—the machines within the machines. They look just like human beings, which sometimes makes it hard for newbies to shoot. She hesitated herself in her first firefight when she glimpsed what seemed to be a man in his mid-twenties, with deep tan skin and black hair much like her own; he could’ve been her brother, if Rafael had had the chance to grow up.

That very human hesitation nearly ended her life that day. Mechs don’t hesitate. They go for the kill every time.

Since then she’s seen that exact same face looking back at her dozens of times. It’s a Charlie model, she now knows. Standard male fighter, ruthless and relentless.

“There are twenty-five models in standard production,” Elder Darius Akide had said, the day he addressed her training class for the first time. “Each has a name beginning with a different letter of the alphabet, from Baker to Zebra. All but two of these models look completely human. And each one is stronger than any human can ever be. They’re programmed with only enough intelligence to perform their core responsibilities. For manual-labor models, that’s not much. But the fighters they send against us? They’re smart. Damned smart. Mansfield left out only the levels of higher intelligence that could allow them to have something like a conscience.”

Noemi’s eyes widen as her tactical screen lights up. Her hands tighten on her weapons controls, and she fires the instant the mech flies into range. For one split second she sees the thing’s face—Queen, standard female fighter model—before both exosuit and mech shatter. Nothing’s left but splinters of metal. Good.

Where’s Esther? They haven’t flown within visual range of each other for a couple of minutes now. Noemi would like to signal her, but she knows better than to use comms for a personal message in the middle of combat. So she can only look.

How am I supposed to find anyone in this? she asks herself as she swoops in over a few more of the mechs, blasting as fast as her weapons will work. Their return fire is so ferocious that black space momentarily turns brilliant white. The invasion forces keep getting larger. Earth keeps getting bolder. They’ll never let up, not ever.

The Masada Run really is our only hope.

She thinks about that scared kid shivering as the troops ran to their fighters. His call sign hasn’t appeared on her screen in a while either. Is he lost? Dead?

And Esther—scout ships are almost defenseless—

Finally the fighting around her breaks for a moment, and she has a chance to scan for Esther’s ship. When she finds it, she feels a moment of elation—it’s intact, Esther’s alive—but then Noemi frowns. Why is Esther all the way over there?

Then Noemi realizes what she’s looking at. Horror injects adrenaline into her veins.

One of the mechs has turned away from the battle. Just—left the fight. She’s never seen a mech do anything like that, and it’s heading toward the debris field near the fallen Gate. Is it malfunctioning? Doesn’t matter. For whatever reason, Esther decided to tail the stupid thing—probably to investigate what it was up to. But now she’s isolated from the Genesis troops who could protect her. If the mech finds what it’s looking for or receives an override from its Damocles, it will turn on Esther in an instant.

Noemi’s duty allows her to defend a fellow fighter who’s in extreme risk. So she banks left and accelerates so hard the force shoves her back in her seat. The blazing firefight around her darkens until her view of space is again clear. The Genesis Gate looms, surrounded by armed platforms. Any ship that approaches without Earth-signature codes gets destroyed. Even from across the galaxy, Earth keeps Genesis in its laser sights.

As she speeds toward Esther’s location, Noemi looks less at her sensor screen. The view from the cockpit shows her enough. Esther’s scout ship zips around the mech, using energy bursts from the sensors to muddle the mech’s workings, but that doesn’t accomplish much. So far the mech is dodging the bursts expertly. Apparently it’s headed toward one of the larger pieces of debris—no, not debris, an abandoned spaceship, some kind of civilian craft. Noemi’s never seen anything like this ship: teardrop-shaped, roughly the volume of a good-size three-story building, and with a mirrored surface that has dulled only slightly over the years. It must have been all but invisible to the naked eye until recently.

Is the mech going to bring that ship back to Earth? The ship was abandoned, obviously, but it doesn’t look seriously damaged from here.

If Earth wants it, then Noemi intends to keep them from getting it. She imagines destroying the mech and recapturing this teardrop ship for the Genesis fleet. Maybe it could be outfitted with weapons, turned into a warship. God knows they need another.

Then again, this mech is a Queen or a Charlie. She and Esther will be in for one hell of a fight.

Bring it on, she thinks.

Noemi cuts her speed as she gets closer. Esther and the mech are almost within weapons range—

—then the mech turns, shifting its aim. It stretches its exoskeleton arms and clasps Esther’s recon ship like a flytrap plant snapping shut around a bug. The way they’re positioned, the mech must be right above Esther, the two of them looking into each other’s eyes.

Weapons! But Noemi can’t shoot the mech from here without blasting Esther, too. In ordinary combat, she’d fire anyway. Any pilot captured like that is dead already, and at least she could destroy the mech.…

—but this is Esther, please not her, please—

The mech releases one arm, draws it back in a startlingly human movement, and punches straight through the hull of Esther’s fighter.

Noemi’s scream deafens her in her own helmet. It doesn’t matter; she doesn’t need to hear—she needs to save Esther.

Ten minutes. Our exosuits give us air for ten minutes. Go, go, go, go—

The mech releases Esther, swivels toward the abandoned ship, then stops, finally picking up Noemi on its scanners. She fires before it can even aim.

In a flash of light, the mech explodes into so much tinsel. Noemi zooms through what’s left of it on her way to Esther, metal splinters clicking against her cockpit shell.

Can we get back to the troop ship in time? No, not with the battle still raging. Okay, then. This abandoned ship. I can restore life support, maybe; if not, it’ll probably have oxygen I can use to re-up Esther’s reserves. First-aid supplies. Maybe even a sick bay. Please, God, let it have a sick bay.

She feels as if she’s praying to nothing. To no one. But even if God doesn’t speak to her, surely he’ll listen for Esther’s sake.

Noemi’s visor fogs slightly. She has to hold back her tears, though, or else they’ll float through the helmet and blind her at the worst moment. So she bites the inside of her cheek as she swoops down toward the devastated scout ship. “Esther? Can you read me?”

No reply. By now Noemi is out of communications range for the other Genesis fighters. If Captain Baz even realizes they’re missing, she won’t hear Noemi’s broadcasts, won’t know to send help. Maybe they’ve both been written off as dead already.

“We’re going to make it,” Noemi promises Esther, and herself, as she edges her fighter closer. Now she can see how badly the scout ship’s been mutilated—metal shredded into shards—but Esther’s helmet seems to be intact. Is she moving? Yes. Noemi thinks she is. She’s alive. She’s going to make it. All I have to do is get us to that ship.

One switch throws a towline into space, and the magnetic clamp catches Esther’s hull. Quickly Noemi scans the mirrored vessel in front of them. There—a docking-bay door.

Powered by magnetic sensors, the plates of the circular door fan open automatically. Noemi’s so grateful she could weep.

It’s always seemed to her that her prayers are never answered, that nobody up there has ever heard her pleas. But God must be listening after all.