My mech suit is my Lady, my love, my metallic goddess of war. I thought Her eternal, fused forever to my body and soul, but now nothing speaks in my mind but the screaming terror of imagining a lifetime lacking Her.

 

Inch by agonizing inch, I drag us off Gaia’s rust-red neighbor, away from the uniformed bodies we were forced to fell together, and back toward my transport’s open hold. Without Her to help carry us, my bones rattle and creak under the dead weight of Her empty husk. Her massive, swaddling form pins me down like a hydrosteel succubus. I close the hatch behind us and lower shipgrav, easing my breath.

 

I find the problem right at the nape of my neck. The fancy chip that bridges mortal mind and machine is damaged, a casualty of laserfire during our run-in with earthly law. The unluckiest of lucky shots, maybe, or those military police knew exactly where to aim.

 

Gotta resupply, no matter the risk. I’m nothing without Her.

 

We land on the moon near a tiny mining town. I drag our body from spaceport to supply station, my muscles screaming and ripping even under Luna’s weak pull. Fear flutters my heart this close to Gaia, my forsaken motherland, the military machine that bolted my Lady to my unworthy bones. That wet blue tyrant stares down, the unblinking eyeball of a jealous goddess.

 

Every unmodded pisspoor outlaw in town sizes us up. Noting our limp. Eyeing my Lady’s scuffed aftermarket paint job, which screams deserter. Reckoning they’ll slurp me out of Her like live-cooked lobster and sell the better side of my soul for parts. Gaia’d be thrilled to pay a queen’s ransom for my head alone.

 

One fool tries his luck with some ancient six-shooter. I aim manually, dropping him, but without my Lady, unmitigated recoil shreds my right shoulder. Just one shot left now, and I’m no southpaw.

 

Now, all the vultures descend.

 

Blasts of lead and light fill the air, ricocheting off my mag-shields. Some strike true, but a little more damaged flesh won’t keep me from my Lady’s love. I crash past bins of lithium and tungsten, creating crossfire, till my fingers circle ’round that precious piece of silicon.

 

My would-be captors are distracted tearing each other apart, so I find a moment alone in the supply station’s back room. My remaining good hand clutches the crucial part, but I hesitate. My mind’s been silent for the first time since conscription. I breathe when I want; I think what I want. I alone choose where we go. Yet each of my wounds thrum with pain unfiltered, my lonely heart worst of all.

 

No one’s here to tell me what’s right, what I oughta do.

 

But I can fix that. With shaking fingers, with holy dread, with fear and awe and helpless wonder…

 

I slot the chip in place.

 

My Lady wraps me in Her soul-lifting antigrav embrace. Her mindlink tendrils slide inside me, pumping nanobots into wounds, replacing agony with rapture. Our body moves of Her will, crimson lasers divinely guided to their targets.

 

“My Sally,” She purrs. “Mine again.”