Acasta's eyes snapped towards the restraints on my bed, and she quickly undid them without a word, allowing me to float freely and move my remaining arm as her eyes returned to the window. I managed to awkwardly duck myself behind my medical bed beside Acasta, though  my arm and body struggled with the exertion, which triggered a wave of lightheadedness.

For a few silent moments, the shifting clouds outside the window stood still, their neon blue lights unblinking as they glared at the two humans in the room as if we had personally wronged their hijacked programming. 

The brief pause was broken as the myriad clouds of nanites coalesced into a single mass with multiple blue lights that flew towards the window and adhered itself to the aluminum oxynitride surface—it became quickly apparent that the cloud was tunneling through the window, probably utilizing the mild acid-esque debris removal protocols the self-repair nanites were designed with.

One cloud of them tunneling through the window probably wouldn't be a problem given the nanites' sheer inefficiency in destruction as opposed to construction, but they were dense enough to nearly completely cover the surface, and my gaze ran across the room as I searched for my detached exoskeleton and emergency atmospheric suit. 

Acasta solved that problem for me when she trudged across the room at top magboot speed, pulling her half-floating patient along with her into a storage area at the back of the room as I made a surprised yelp.

The paramedic wasted little time and zero words as she pushed me into my magnetic boots and exoskeleton, which recognized me and automatically began plugging in a myriad of wires and umbilical pipes into the implanted ports running up and down my back—giving me the sensation of suddenly regaining the use of a lost sense or limb as the torso control unit interfaced with my mind.

The sounds of gently crackling and bubbling aluminum oxynitride echoed from the far side of the room, as the nanite cloud continued its quest to stop us from breathing for the foreseeable future. Acasta pointed me towards my suit, which sat in a wall-mounted holding rack a few meters away, and quickly got into her own space suit, which came adorned with medical accessories and ample pocket space, as well as a Star of Life armband that matched the one she wore on her coat. I particularly noticed the maneuvering thruster pack strapped to her back, which made me a little envious before I managed to bring my mind back to the task at hand.

I wasn't going to argue with not asphyxiating, and laboriously put my emergency suit on, my body aching at practically every movement despite the assistance of my exoskeleton. A faint hammering sensation appeared at the back of my head, which wasn't very reassuring, but it was soon overshadowed by a familiar wave of lightheadedness. This was going to suck.

I realized that neither of us had informed Ophelia of our rogue nanobot predicament, and I quickly turned on my exoskeleton's mic and told her that we were dealing with a cloud of nanites outside the medical post, to which she replied in a rather distressed tone that she was on her way back as fast as possible.

Acasta spoke into the voice link between our exoskeletons as she launched off her magnetic boot locks and flew towards a control panel to my right, moving in microgravity quite easily for someone who didn't regularly spacewalk or venture into the ring's central bay. "I'm venting the room so there's no damage when they breach the window. Let's get outside after, and I'll try to kill the cloud before it gets through."

I replied "better idea than any I have right now," and walked towards the air lock, watching the ever-shifting cloud of burrowing nanites through the window as the room slowly lost atmosphere, the hissing sound of moving air dying down until there wasn't any air left to carry sound, and I could hear only my breathing, the whirring of my exoskeleton and Acasta's calm, deep voice. 

Acasta pushed herself off the far wall and towards me, floating until she grabbed onto a handlebar on the other side of the inner air lock door from where I stood. The paramedic then tapped a panel beside her, opening the inner door, and set her boots on the floor again with a firm double click to walk into the air lock with me.

With another tap of a panel from Acasta, the air lock cycled, and I glanced outwards, finding my surroundings little different from what I expected—a vast forest of dead trees amid an asphyxiated landscape, littered with dust and floating, tumbling debris, exposed to the dead vacuum of space where once there had been precious nitrogen and oxygen, topped with a simulated blue sky. If I could get my shit together (unlikely), this strangled starlit countryside would sing with life once again someday, but that was out of mind for now—survival was first priority, and survival meant helping Acasta deal with an eldritch cloud of moderately malicious machines. 

The nanites, of course, had already started moving in their weird blue-lit clouds towards us, and I scrambled for cover when my mind wrestled itself out of aimless imagination as Acasta raised her pistol. At the best speed my tired muscles could manage, I trundled off of the medical post's landing and away, looking for some sort of weapon, while Acasta's maneuvering pack thrusters fired, lifting her off the landing and upwards, her weapon aimed towards the approaching rogue nanobots.

Acasta began to perform a microgravity dance with the nanite cloud—weaving in and out in short bursts of monopropellant and utilizing a full three dimensions of movement to try and obtain clean shots at the malevolent neon blue lights inside the shifting cloud that pursued her, having rightly deemed her their primary target.

Streams of thruster fire etched diffuse white lines into the black void for mere moments until they were blotted out by clouds of metallic rogue nanobots as Acasta picked off the myriad lights in the nanite formation one-by-one whenever she could, subtly adjusting her aim each time her pistol rounds missed and barely dodging the puncture of her thin suit (and near-certain death) by knife-like streams of blue-tinted nanites repeatedly with well-timed bursts of lateral maneuvering.

If I hadn't met her yet, I could've absolutely mistaken her for a trainee NZRN firebird (special forces dedicated to microgravity combat), such was the grace with which the paramedic moved—I was mesmerized by the strangely gorgeous display, even as I urged myself to keep searching for better cover or a weapon with which to assist her.

Each time Acasta's aim proved true, low-velocity pistol rounds slammed into the blue lights sitting inside the nanite mass, quickly disintegrating and sending streams of glittering metal dust barreling through yet more tiny nanites—taking small chunks out of the amorphous cloud and briefly lighting up the darkened ring landscape every time she fired. I won't lie, Acasta looked… really fucking hot.

Thought Acasta blew out malevolent blue light after malevolent blue light, the swarm was seemingly kept alive by a steady stream of nanites originating from an unlit area off to my left, which had, miraculously, not yet picked me as a target—until the exact moment when Acasta's still-calm voice appeared out of my exoskeleton's speaker, muttering "out of ammo," and she began to concentrate all her effort into dodging and weaving through the swarm as she made her way towards me.

For my part, I was being pursued by an angry, single-lighted nanite mass, which had formed itself into a metallic piercing head and seemed determined to put me out of the fight for good as I… ran away as fast as I could in a panic. What else did you expect me to do? I can't exactly punch a half-formless cloud of robot dust.

As my body groaned with exertion, I faintly noticed a peculiar flash of light in the patch of dead woods directly in front of me, slightly off towards my right—I near-immediately registered it as a burst of muzzle flash. As I reflexively dodged to my left, three rifle bullets flew just past me, smashing into the single blue light at the center of my nanite pursuer, causing it to spasm briefly before the cloud died, becoming just another field of dust floating in microgravity. Having found salvation, I stopped and gasped for air in my cramped emergency suit before looking upwards towards the muzzle flash, soon spotting a figure suited in some kind of combat gear and wielding a smart rifle stepping out of a field of asphyxiated shrubbery, towards me.

The figure's helmet visor shifted from being opaque to transparent, revealing a pale-skinned feminine face with thick, strawberry blonde hair and warm pink eyes gently smiling towards me. My peripheral vision registered the anchor-and-compass emblem of the Norwegian Republican Navy on their suit's nanofiber chestplate, and before I could take in more of their appearance, my suit control panel beeped with a connection request that I quickly accepted.

A playful, operatic voice came through my exoskeleton's speaker. "Hei, darling. I'd get lost in your eyes, but your medic friend up there looks like they need a knight as much as you did. Talk later!" The lady gave me a teasing salute and stepped past me, and it was only then that I noticed the integrated maneuvering pack fastened to her rugged suit's back, and the slightly faded NRM firebird emblem painted onto it—just a moment before their magnetic boots disengaged with a click, and her maneuvering pack thrusters fired, sending her flying upwards, smart rifle in hand, straight towards the amorphous cloud pursuing a fleeing Acasta through the void. I could do little but stand there, opening and closing my mouth repeatedly with absurdly flushed cheeks as I watched the fireworks unfold.

The knight let loose a focused burst of low-velocity rifle fire into a pair of lights at the center of the combined nanite cloud as she rapidly approached, causing both to flicker and die as a cloud of dead nanite dust spewed out the back of the swarm. As Acasta flew deftly behind her, the two having presumably established a quick comms link, the knight began her own microgravity concert with the blue-tinted nanite cloud, and where Acasta danced to a slow, cautious tune, picking her shots wisely and attempting to conserve her limited ammunition, the knight had no such qualms, confident in the sheer agility and skill fully trained firebirds were legendary for. 

Two tandem streams of monopropellant residue carved through the dark as the firebird's well-aimed rifle bursts tore out chunks of nanite mass, displaying a mastery of microgravity and 3D combat maneuvering that would've been the poster-child of any navy recruitment program back on Earth. Hell, the knight almost seemed to be toying with their prey, firing her maneuvering thrusters to move in cinematic, sweeping arcs through the space above me, rather than the precise, efficient bursts of a focused soldier as the nanite cloud rapidly dwindled in size. The things I'd give to hear what she and Acasta were talking about, right now…

As mesmerized as I was by the waltz playing out in the vacuum skies above me, I barely noticed a figure in a deep blue NZRN combat suit step out beside me, her gaze as captured by the display as I was. The gait and rather cute fidgeting told me it was Ophelia, who had presumably made her way here after I radioed her, just to find that her smart rifle probably wouldn't be needed right now.

The final light in the nanite mass blinked out, and with it, the rest of the cloud spasmed and fell dead, floating aimlessly in the space above our heads. I heaved a sigh of relief, now that the immediate danger was gone, and looked to my left, talking into my exoskeleton microphone towards Ophelia's opaque helmet visor.

"You were just in time for the show, Ophelia," I chuckled, watching in my peripheral vision as Acasta and the knight fired their maneuvering thrusters downwards, towards us.

"Hm… I suppose I was, honey. Well, as long as you're all unhurt, I'm happy, even if I didn't get to use this rifle at all," Ophelia replied through the radio, looking up towards the two returning flyers.

As Acasta and the knight secured themselves to the ground with a click from their magboots, a group comms connection request opened on my control panel, which I accepted—looking up, I nearly doubled over at the sight of Acasta's normally mostly expressionless face covered in an intense, fiery blush. Gods above, she really was cute.

The knight spoke first, introducing herself in that operatic voice again and performing a modest bow for effect. "Hei, so rude of me not to introduce myself. I'm Ellinor, Elli if you prefer it shorter—I'm very glad to help! I was lucky enough to meet a trio of lovely maidens while doing it, too," she said, smiling. Acasta sputtered into her microphone, failing to form words for a good ten seconds or so as Elli grinned, the firebird's rosy cheeks brought out by starry, happy eyes.

"W-Well, I'm… Aspen, it's a pleasure," I stuttered out, my face flushing despite my best efforts to suppress the warmth in my face.

"... hi," Ophelia whispered, and I could imagine the blush on her face… a very, very pretty blush. Please, Elli, we're never going to get this ring back up and running if we're busy being in complete gay panic mode.

Elli spoke again, and the glint in her eyes got even brighter. "So, how do you all feel about an aquarium date?"