I found myself face down in the dirt. Everything was eerily silent except for a ringing in my ears. Even lying down, my head spun. I sucked in a breath and suddenly every muscle hurt. Was I dying? Again?

All I could see were spots as I scrambled onto all fours. My stomach rolled with the moment, and the pounding in my head was blinding. What had even happened?

I could hardly remember my own name.

I blinked all four of my eyes, slowly looking up. The night was bright. Why was the night bright? I numbly clawed my way forward, legs rushed by me. I rolled over, falling onto my carapace, and my muscles cried in protest.

Fire. High into the sky, burning bright and vicious. Smouldering and hot.

I looked down at myself. Nothing hurt except my head. And my muscles when I tried to use them. Everything was still so quiet.

It had been a bomb. Huh. I had been right.

People were everywhere. Lips moved even though everything was silent. I squeezed my eyes shut, grinding my teeth.

I heard a whoosh, a popping sound. People were shouting. I leaned over and vomited.

Where was Doctor Flanagan?

I couldn’t even look for her. Just turning my head made me want to hurl. I gave up and closed my eyes. Was I dying? I had forgotten to check.

I couldn’t… think.

I did the only thing I could do. I disconnected partially from my senses, letting everything blur into the background. The pain and nausea dimmed as I loosened my grip on the primate. Uncurling myself from everything that felt bad, I focused on finding some clarity.

I sat up. Fuzzy but functional. Poor primate.

Oh God, poor Doctor Flanagan.

She was just… gone. Literally.

She had… I had… Fuck!

Officers were using fire extinguishers to put the flames out. With the crisis being handled, I inspected myself, not trusting myself to get up. I looked… shockingly okay. Covered in cuts and achingly sore, but nothing that looked life-threatening. I had come out in one piece instead of… a spray of gore, erased.

I felt behind me and grimaced despite the numbness. My carapace. It was probably the only reason I was alive, but… my shell was bleeding. That didn’t make sense. How could a carapace bleed? I didn’t even want to know what my back looked like. I hadn’t even felt it lying down. My body was still far too haywire. I must have managed to turn around, surely my back was now… powdered. Could it even heal? Did I just need to bail to another host and abandon the primate in a destroyed body? Oh God. I was horrible.

Emotion finally seemed to catch up, tears I couldn’t cry bubbling up inside me. Everything hurt so much. I had gotten Doctor Flannagan killed trying to warn everyone. I had fucked this up so badly.

Nicole was still gone.

I let out a shuddering breath. This was maybe the worst day of my life, and I had died before.

People were chattering. Guards holding rifles. Civilians waving their arms expressively. The frowning faces of all sorts of people.

The medical tent was gone. The medical equipment was gone.

No…

I scrambled up, pushing past people, fueled by adrenaline as I stomped towards the rubble. I immediately backtracked, the ground smouldering and hot. Metal was melted, cloth incinerated. The notebook… ash.

Nicole’s repair pod… a hardening molten liquid.

No…

The one thing that housed a backup of her mind, the one thing that could repair her if damaged, the one thing that kept her alive. Gone.

And Nicole was gone.

No… no no no, no no no no no…

It had all gone so wrong. I felt like I was dying. Maybe I honestly was, I couldn’t keep up at this point.

A piercing whistle cut through the night.

I had never run so fast in my life. I had never felt slower.

I found her by the beach, walking quickly towards the chaos, fingers raised to her lips as she let out another shrill whistle.

“Nicole!” I called, relief filling every nerve in my body.

She smiled, seeming to relax the moment she saw me. Then she seemed to really take me in; she frowned. I threw myself into her arms with a wailing cry.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, Nicole, it won’t happen again. I’m so sorry. Please, I promise I won’t do it again. I’m sorry, so sorry,” I babbled, clinging to her, unable to get enough air.

“Elsy, what?” Nicole blinked, holding me tight.

“I didn’t mean it. I’m sorry,” I just repeated, the words bursting out of me. “Please don’t leave me. I’m sorry.”

“Elsy, I… I did not leave to hurt you, I promise,” she said so very gently. “We were both becoming frustrated, I just… needed to clear my head.”

“You were gone so long,” I whined. “I didn’t know if you were coming back.”

“I’m sorry,” Nicole sighed. “I didn’t know how to help. I was… trying to find a way for us to have our little cabin.”

I squeezed my arms tightly around her, inhaling the scent of her mechanisms. “Just… please don’t leave me, I think I would die. I fucked it up, I fucked it all up. I can’t… do anything right!”

“Elsy,” Nicole tried to soothe.

“Matthew is alive,” I continued. “I woke up because I thought it was you but it was him and he put a box on the table and I guessed it was a bomb because it was the worst thing I could think of but I didn’t know how to tell anyone so I got Doctor Flanagan because her tent is close but then she didn’t understand and… boom.” I trailed off, trembling in Nicole’s arms.

Nicole said nothing. “You’re bleeding.”

“Boom,” I repeated. “I must have turned around, my back… I can’t feel anything right now.”

“Okay, let’s get you looked at,” Nicole smiled just a little bit.

“Nicole, it’s all gone,” I tried to explain. “Everything is gone. Everything. I thought you were gone, too.”

“Elsy, take a breath. I am right here, and I will happily continue to reassure you of that while I inspect your wounds,” Nicole replied, already carrying me off.

I kept trying to explain the situation. Nicole didn’t seem to get it, or if she did, she didn’t seem to care. She fetched a first aid kit and took me to Doctor Falanagan’s tent. I sat on the bed where I had woken up the woman just minutes ago, really. Nicole kept a gentle hand on me at all times, as if she was worried I would float away without a constant reminder. I felt like I very well might.

She cleaned my cuts with water and covered me with bandages. She was most concerned with my carapace. It was cracked, splintered like it had been hit with… well a bomb. I was still bleeding, but Nicole couldn’t bandage a shell, not when the blood was coming from inside, where the squishy stuff was.

“Elsy, we may need to find you a new host,” Nicole said gently. “The humans might be alien enough that they are immune to most diseases here, but the primate is not. Infection is likely the greatest threat. Such an injury may not even heal. I will need to see what equipment survived the blast. It’s not good, Elsy.”

I didn’t know what to say to that. Everything was pulsing with pain, and I was still trying to keep myself detached from bodily sensations. “Okay,” I settled on. Poor primate. In all my worry, I had still gotten her gravely wounded. “I want a huuman,” I decided. “Someone pretty. I want to be pretty. But also someone mean so I don’t feel so bad.”

Nicole chuckled, removing her gloves as she walked around to face me.

We shared a brief smile, and some part of me found some degree of acceptance. But it faded. “It’s gone, Nicole. Medical equipment, our things… your repair pod.”

Nicole nodded. “I understand. Let’s just worry about you right now.”

“But—“

“Please, Elsy, let me be useful,” Nicole grimaced. “I know. I know. Okay?”

I nodded. So that’s how it was. I couldn’t blame her. That’s what I had done when I had been dying. Just… ignored it. But that hadn’t stopped it from sneaking up on me. And now any injury, any cut or bump, would be permanent. No more repairs, no more refuelling, nothing. Nicole’s life was on a ticking clock. And there was nothing I could do about it.

The medical equipment was unusable. Obviously, that's what people focused on as panic grew. Patrols were increased now that Matthew had been spotted. Yet someone had dragged out his body, scraped for useful parts. Which meant there was more than one Matthew. Fuck.

Nicole was weirdly calm about it all. Or maybe calm was the wrong word, but she was quiet. I had been with her when she had pulled the repair pod from the rubble. I had seen the way she had traced her fingers over it ever so gently. But she didn’t cry. She wasn’t okay, but she didn’t cry either.

I didn’t want a human host. Not really. That had just been a moment of desperation and fatigue. A fleeting thought.

Maybe I did. I couldn’t think about that right now. How did we get Nicole a new repair pod? Just how custom did they have to be? The Imperium would surely have one when the SS Argonaut arrived. But could we wait that long?

Matthew was a synthetic. He must have a repair pod. And we knew where he was hiding out… probably.

Except that trying to do something like that would only put people in more danger.

Poor Doctor Fanangan. I had fucked that up so badly by trying to help. Why would she touch it? I kept making explosion sounds…

It was so stupid.

Nicole cuddled with me. Every bone in my body felt like it had been rearranged. But it didn’t hurt so much when I could bury my face in the crook of her neck. I knew it was pathetic, that I had been and was being pathetic. But it was just… me. I had been created to be pathetic, and I couldn’t always be strong enough to overcome that.

She pressed a kiss to the top of my head, and I slept.