The room was silent for the barest of moments as Jesri’s indignant outburst echoed back on the crowd, then a shrill scream sent the room into pandemonium. People ran clutching bundles and children, fleeing into cleverly disguised boltholes in the walls. Se Dasi hesitated only a moment before jumping in front of Jesri and crouching in a low combat stance, her eyes flashing with determination. Her exhausted squad formed a loose circle around the bemused Valkyrie.

Jesri hadn’t moved. She eyed the encircling Irri closely, her stance broadcasting a casual wariness. They stood like that for several seconds before Jesri exhaled and relaxed her posture. “Okay, folks,” she sighed, “let’s not get-”

She was interrupted by two Irri dashing towards her from opposite sides of the circle, coming in low to grab at her legs in an immobilizing tackle. She dodged backwards and sidestepped past one, tripping him into his oncoming teammate. Another Irri from behind her managed to grab Jesri’s wrist only to be pulled forward into a fluid throw that left him dazed on the decking.

A heavy pipe caught Jesri in the shoulder and sent her stumbling back before she recovered into a half crouch and drew her sidearm. Qktk shouted in alarm, taking an involuntary step forward, but Jesri had already fired a tight burst of shots in an arc around her. Each shot hammered into the metal deck, the crack and flash of ablated metal beating a staccato pulse through the air and freezing the Irri in their tracks.

Qktk sagged in relief, earning an annoyed look from Jesri. “Have a little faith, Kick,” she admonished him, holding her gun low but ready. “If I wanted them dead I’d have used this a lot earlier.”

“We will die before we let you take us,” Se Dasi snarled. “Our souls are our own!”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Jesri said, rolling her eyes and holstering her weapon. “Guys, I’m just-”

The brawny Irri with the pipe took another swing at Jesri as soon as her hand left the gun. She was forced to evade with an undignified hop backwards. She scowled and caught the pipe on his follow-up attack, ripping it from his grasp and pulling him forward with a surprised squawk. A circular sweep sent her attackers back a few paces and allowed Jesri a moment to breathe.

“Fucking enough!”, she shouted, her voice ringing off the walls and freezing the Irri in place. “Dammit, just… Rhuar, can you tell these guys I’m not trying to steal their souls?”

Rhuar stared back at her in confusion. “Me?”

“You were doing okay before,” she retorted.

Rhuar scratched his fur nervously. “I guess,” he muttered, “but my sister isn’t an undying nightmare made flesh-”

“Not helping,” she hissed.

Se Dasi glared at Jesri warily, stepping backwards. “You took He Mari, gave him to the Sleepers. For that alone you are our enemy.”

“The guy we caught on the chase?”, Jesri asked. “Look, he’s just a prisoner. We’re not going to kill the guy or anything. I’ll ask Ellie to release him when we get back - as long as you let Rhuar and Qktk go. We’ll call it a trade.”

Se Dasi threw her hands into the air in a frustrated gesture. “If only that were possible. Colonel Tam has him now, there is no easy way back. She will touch his mind with her magic. He will lose his soul and become one of the Sleepers.”

“Oh, come on!”, Jesri shouted. “Ellie doesn’t have any magic. She doesn’t steal souls. The Irri that follow her behave differently than you because they choose to follow military discipline, not because they’re cursed or something.” She shook her head. “Listen, just let me take these two back and we’ll get your friend sent home. Ellie will listen to me.”

Squaring her shoulders and drawing herself up to her full height, Se Dasi stood in front of Jesri and met her gaze. She was trembling, although Jesri couldn’t tell whether it was rage or fear she felt. Jesri stared back coolly, waiting.

“She steals souls,” Se Dasi said firmly, her voice low and serious. “She is evil. If you doubt me, I will show you proof.” She turned away and walked briskly towards a cluster of scrap-metal shacks huddled into a corner, not waiting for Jesri to follow.

Jesri frowned, but walked after Se Dasi. She caught up to her just as she was ducking past a faded violet sheet to enter one of the huts. From within, she could hear a constant flow of muffled conversation. She had to bend low to fit under the Irri-height doorframe, scuttling past the curtain into a low room lined with cots along the walls. She wrinkled her nose as she entered, the stench of excrement and vomit laying thick in the air around her.

Most of the beds were filled with Irri, lying still on their back and staring at the ceiling. Some moved their hands aimlessly, others whispered and muttered softly to themselves. The bed nearest to the door was occupied by an Irri wearing one of Eleanor’s grey uniforms, talking steadily to himself as he wrung his hands anxiously. A smear of dark green blood stained his collar and the side of his head, flaking off onto the bed occasionally as he twitched and rolled.

“So much, so much,” he raved, slurring his words until they were almost unintelligible. “I need… I need…”

His eyes bulged wide, the muscles in his face straining as he turned his head slowly to look at Jesri. Green smudges stained his sclera and his face was caked with crusty residue from his mouth and nose.

“Drinni?”, Jesri stammered, aghast at the state of the once-exemplary ensign. “What happened to you?”

He lunged out of his bed, falling half onto the floor as he scrambled to grab Jesri’s arm with a bruisingly tight grip. His eyes stared past her, his yellow irises dilating wide. “Stop,” he hissed, strands of foamy saliva trailing from his cheek. “Stop, stop, stop, stop stop stop…” His grip on her arm weakened and he curled into a ball on the floor, rocking back and forth and slamming his open palms weakly into the sides of his head.

Se Dasi bent down and gently lifted him back into his bed, making soothing noises and lifting a ratty brown blanket over him. He flailed at it for a few uncoordinated swipes before pulling it off and clumsily clutching it to his chest.

Qktk and Rhuar had followed her into the hut and were staring at Drinni in mute horror. Se Dasi straightened up and looked defiantly at Jesri. “Rhuar said you were her sister?”, she snarled. “See what your kin has done to mine.” She gestured to the immobile Irri on the beds. “All of them, taken by Colonel Tam and given a Sleeper soul. When we take our family back from her, the body passes beyond the great doors and the soul remains with her.” She bent down to stroke an old man’s cheek as he stared blankly at the corroded metal roof of the hut. He didn’t react to her touch. “With time one in twenty may speak again,” she said quietly, her voice tight with anger. “If they are young the chance is better.”

“They’re sick,” said Jesri, looking around the room. “An environmental toxin, nutrient deficiency, something. I was just there, Se Dasi, Ellie isn’t doing anything-”

“You’re wrong!”, Se Dasi yelled, causing a few of the catatonic Irri to flinch and whimper. She looked abashed for a moment, but the full force of her anger returned as she glared at Jesri. “You’re wrong,” she said, no trace of doubt in her voice. “If you will not believe me, if you will not believe your own eyes, then know that the spirits also say Colonel Tam is responsible.”

Jesri stared at her, then shook her head. “The spirits, huh?”

Se Dasi straightened up. “Ask them yourself if you still doubt,” she said coolly. “This way.”

She bent down and exited the hut, the purple curtain waving gently behind her.

Rhuar blinked and exchanged a look with Qktk. “Wait,” he said, “what did she just say?”

Eleanor stormed through the hall beside Anja, a comet tail of Irri trailing behind her. It had taken them longer than either would have liked to get back to the docks after Jesri’s team reported her solo excursion into the next ring segment. At the two-hour mark after her departure, Anja’s patience was gone.

“I am going, Ellie,” she said, her tone not inviting further discussion. “If your troops must stay in this segment, so be it.” She stalked off down the hall towards the midline corridor.

“I’m telling you, there’s a better option!”, Eleanor shouted, chasing after her. “Anja, are you really going to spend hours running around trying to find where they’ve holed up? Wait another hour, help my crew connect the Grand Design’s reactor to the grid. We can run power to that segment and turn on sensors, communications, everything. If we can do that I’ll deploy everyone I have, but I need you to help. You’re the only one left who knows the ship’s systems.”

Anja stopped and glared at her. “Thirty minutes,” she said grudgingly. “I will help for thirty minutes and then I’m leaving. Your crew can finish up and follow me at their own speed.”

Eleanor smiled at her and nodded. “Thank you, Anja. We very well could finish before then, with your help. I’ll task a few crews to make sure the conduits are clear down to the segment barrier, then I’ll meet you at the docking bay.”

Anja nodded in return and stalked off. Eleanor’s Irri contingent followed her silently, leaving Eleanor alone in the hall. She stood silently for a moment with her eyes closed. After a few seconds, she reopened her eyes and grinned, heading down the hall after her sister.

Picking her way through a haphazard labyrinth of shacks, walls and draped fabric, Jesri followed Se Dasi towards the back of the hold and out into a hallway. Rhuar and Qktk trailed behind her, unable to resist their curiosity. They walked for a short distance until they reached an empty doorframe that had been daubed with red pigment in an intricate pattern. Jesri could see the crumbling crusts of old paint where the pattern had been painted over year after year, giving it a slightly raised appearance.

Se Dasi paused before the door, standing still with her eyes closed for a moment before striding in. The others followed her, passing through the door and waiting for a moment as their eyes adjusted to the dim lights within. It was an old theater, the standard no-frills sort that was installed by default in every residential block.

The large display at the far end was scratched and pitted, clearly nonfunctional, but the tiny stage area in front of it had been converted to a makeshift altar. Loops of shiny wire tied with multicolored fabric were strewn in front of a bowl filled with clear data chips, the platinum-white wires embedded in each chip glittering as Jesri moved closer. She almost grinned - no wonder the systems in this segment were so shot, if they were stripping all the consoles as an offering.

Se Dasi lowered herself to a sitting position - on the floor, since all of the theater’s seats had long since been stripped from the room. “Spirits, Protectors, I greet you,” she said formally. “Se Dasi asks for counsel.” She settled back and stopped speaking. Jesri couldn’t tell if she was meditating or staring at the altar.

After a minute had passed, Rhuar gave Jesri a look as though he wanted to say something, but Jesri shook her head firmly no. They weren’t about to burn through whatever goodwill they had somehow achieved by disrupting a religious ritual. They would sit until Se Dasi finished communing with-

“Hello, Se Dasi,” boomed a voice from the speakers behind the display. “It’s been a long while since you were here. What do you need?”

Jesri blinked. It was a human voice, male, speaking casually through the theater’s audio system. She languished in a moment of unbalanced confusion. Rhuar, not the languishing type, coughed and stood up. “Wait, what?”, he said, “Se Dasi, no offense, but those are just speakers. The audio-”

She turned her head back to glare at Rhuar angrily. “Of course they’re speakers,” she spit, “Do you think I’m stupid? We may not have a lot of it, but we understand electricity. The spirits live in the wires. How else would they talk to us?”

Rhuar sputtered, at a loss for words, and the voice behind the screen gave a low chuckle. “Ah, a visitor! Don’t worry, I appreciate a skeptic,” he said. “Please don’t think I’m trying to pull one over on the Free Irri. I haven’t tried to conceal what I am, but my nature is… complex, let’s say. Calling me a spirit is not the most accurate, it’s true, but it gets us most of the way there and saves me from having to teach a few courses in computer science and galactic history. I’ve made clear to the Irri that my advice and goodwill isn’t contingent on offerings or obedience.”

Se Dasi nodded firmly. “We give from thanks, not fear.”

“Just to be clear,” Qktk said slowly. “You’re implying that you’re inhabiting the station’s computer systems. A non-physical entity.” Rhuar and Jesri shared a look, then turned back to the screen in consternation.

The voice paused, seeming to mull it over. “More or less,” it finally answered. “Like I said, it’s complex. I’m not sitting in a room somewhere speaking into an audio pickup, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

“Uh,” said Rhuar, his intended speech about exploiting less-advanced cultures suddenly seeming less pressing. Jesri shot him another warning look, and he nodded. “So,” he said cautiously, “given that you’re on a human station you probably know what our next question is going to be.”

“Ah, yes,” sighed the voice. “You’re right to be suspicious. I suppose we could do proper introductions. How about this - I don’t have a visual feed and I like to know who I’m talking to. Considering which station you’re on, I think I’m allowed a bit of my own suspicion. You start, tell me about who you are. Then I’ll tell you a bit about me.”

Rhuar stared blankly at the screen for a second. “Uh, sure,” he said. “I’m Rhuar. I’m an artificer and a pilot. Oh, and I’m a dog.”

“Oh, interesting!”, exclaimed the voice. “I believe you’re the first dog we’ve had come by these parts.” Rhuar couldn’t help but feel a bit flattered at the voice’s enthusiasm. Jesri was still a bit too out-of-sorts to notice, but Qktk did and sighed.

“I’m Qktk,” he rattled tiredly. “I’m a Htt ship captain and a merchant.”

“Another first for me,” the voice said eagerly. “This is shaping up to be an interesting sort of day.”

Jesri cleared her throat. “I’m Jesri Tam,” she said, “and I’m-”

“-a Valkyrie,” he said, his voice noticeably quieter and less bombastic. “Captain Tam, I didn’t know you had arrived on-station already.”

Jesri’s urge to stare was running into her profound lack of anything to stare at. “You know who I am?”, she asked in confusion. Se Dasi was staring at her with wide eyes.

“Of course I do, sir,” the voice said, its friendly tone sliding into something cooler, more professional. “I’m the one who invited you here.”

“All right, heave!”, Anja growled, tugging the last of the four major connectors into place and locking it tightly. Behind her, an Irri work team stretched their aching arms for a moment before running to their next task - whatever that was. She sighed. Working with the Irri was efficient, if admittedly rather strange. They didn’t talk unless they were talking to her. They would disappear until she needed help, at which point a group with precisely the numbers and skills needed to assist would swoop in.

It was quite effective. They had hooked up the reactor in an amazingly short time, darting around the conduits like dour grey ants. Anja smiled at the image and walked back towards the main dock platform to find Eleanor standing in the middle of a swarm of busy Irri.

“Ellie, our team is done!”, she shouted. “I think we were the last ones!”

Eleanor looked up at her. “Ah, yes,” she said. “Not quite. We had the last team report successful hookup just as you walked up.”

Anja nodded. “Are we good to head out?”

“Give me another ten minutes,” Eleanor said placatingly. “We need to power the conduits between here and the segment barrier in stages to avoid overloading any degraded bits. My teams can fix little issues as they come up, but if we blow the whole line it’ll take us days to fix.”

Anja threw her hands up in irritation. “Fine, fine,” she groused. “Let’s get started, then.”

Eleanor nodded, and behind her a team of Irri scrambled into action around a power regulator. They fiddled with it briefly, then the power cables leading from it thrummed with a sudden surge of electricity.

Anja nearly had to catch Eleanor as she staggered to the side, grabbing on to Anja’s shoulder for balance. “Ellie?”, she said in surprise. “You okay, sister?”

“Hah, yeah,” Eleanor said, straightening up with a hand to her forehead. “Just lost my balance for a second. I guess I’m overdue for a nap.”

“You should rest, Ellie,” Anja scolded. “You were always the one spouting off stuff like ‘fatigue waits in ambush’. You used to sound like a page out of the survival manual.”

“That is a page out of the survival manual,” Eleanor responded with a smirk. “Really, Anja, I’m fine. I’ll rest once we’ve got Jesri back.”

Anja gave her a doubtful look, but didn’t press the issue. “Okay,” she agreed. “Just get the power to that ring segment and I will take care of the rest.”

Eleanor grinned. “Atta girl. Why don’t you get ready to head out? My team will meet you at the dock exit once you’re done.”

Anja nodded and jogged over to the Grand Design’s boarding ramp. Behind her, she heard the thrum of the next set of conduits being charged.

“Okay,” Jesri said, breaking the stunned silence that had followed the voice’s claim. “I think it’s your turn to talk.”

“Agreed, sir,” sighed the voice. “I’m just at a loss about where to start.” There were a few more yawning moments of silence before he spoke again. “I should introduce myself, at least. My name is David Kincaid, and I’m a member of a… let’s call it a resistance, of sorts. A covert network organized to fight the Gestalt.”

Jesri contemplated that for a moment. “You realize how that sounds,” she said flatly. “I’d be skeptical enough if you were a living, breathing human telling me that, but you’re-”

“A disembodied voice?”, David responded dryly. “I’ll grant that my current state doesn’t do much for my credibility, but I would have thought I’d be good on that score after saving you from the Emissaries back on Ysl.”

“It’s enough for me to hear you out,” Jesri allowed. “Care to explain the disembodied bit?”

David paused again. “I don’t mind explaining, but we may have more pressing issues. Your sisters seem to be preparing to come and get you.”

Se Dasi gave a start at his words and looked accusingly at Jesri. “You’ve led them here?”, she asked, the fear plain on her face. Jesri put her hands up placatingly, but Se Dasi rounded on her in a rage with fists raised.

“Wait!”, David thundered, stopping Se Dasi in her tracks. “Captain, please listen,” he said insistently, “We may have very little time. Did Se Dasi explain about Colonel Tam?”

Jesri snorted. “Not you too. If you’re going to tell me Eleanor is a soul-stealing witch then this conversation is over.”

“Ah. No, sir,” David said hesitantly, “but there are some things you need to know about her. She’s not well, Captain. She’s been forcibly implanting the Irri with modified Valkyrie mental links and using them as behavioral control devices. She’s tampered with her own link as well, to her detriment.”

Jesri gaped. “David, that’s-! That’s so ridiculous I don’t even know what to dispute first,” she fumed. “First off, Ellie wouldn’t do that. Second, Valkyrie tech wouldn’t work on Irri biology, and even if it did-”

“Actually,” interjected Rhuar, “Drinni mentioned earlier that all of the Irri had been given mental links. I noticed him using his on our tour and asked about it.”

“But that’s impossible!”, Jesri objected, an odd sense of claustrophobia pressing on her. “Even if she wanted to do something like that, even if she solved the compatibility issue, the Valkyrie tech was top-secret military stuff. The fabricators here wouldn’t know how to print one, they wouldn’t have even carried the plans on her corvettes. You can’t print something without plans or an example, and the only one she had was in her own head.”

David was quiet for several seconds. “There was one Valkyrie team on each of the three corvettes,” he said softly. “Six of your sisters in total. I don’t know the precise details as it happened long before I came here, but I have the records from the ship and station computers.”

“What?”, Jesri said incredulously. “No. Absolutely not. She told me she was traveling alone. She said she lived here alone. David, we can’t lie.”

“She tampered with her own link,” David repeated patiently, “to her detriment. They’re not just for communication. She removed all of the default restrictions, from what I’ve been able to ascertain. Not just the social limiters like non-mission deception - she unlocked the cognitive limiters too. She kept a regular log on the station network, early on.”

David stopped talking and a low hiss of background noise came over the speakers, followed by Ellie’s intense, breathy voice.

“I’ve almost got it,” she said, notes of enthusiasm and frustration dripping from her tone. “I’ve isolated the protections on the limiting protocols. Once the station finishes with the encryption, I should be able to return all of us to our full potential.” She paused. “It’s too late,” she said angrily. “Too late to make much of a difference. All I can do now is help my sisters. Cait and Liza want to leave now that Kiera is dead, to look for others. They’ll be outnumbered and alone out there. We need to grow beyond our boundaries, adapt to the times,” Ellie finished grimly. “Adapt or die.”

David ended the playback, the hiss fading to nothingness as Jesri stared in slow, seeping horror. “That’s the last recording,” David said apologetically. “None of the other Valkyrie committed log entries after that date. I don’t believe she realized that removing the restrictions would also re-enable the mental link networking capability.”

“No,” Jesri breathed, reality shattering around her. “Oh, Ellie. Oh no.” She remembered Eleanor running through the halls ahead of her when they were children, laughing when the program supervisor scolded her. Her mind’s eye shifted to show her Eleanor stooped over the corpses of her sisters, hands bloody to the elbows-

“Insanity, delusions of grandeur, self-destructive behavior,” said Rhuar wonderingly. “Anja had said they removed the network links because of instability.”

“Only blocked, not removed,” David said sadly. “Now Colonel Tam uses hers to monitor and direct all of the Irri within her segment of the station. Any implanted Irri within the area she controls is effectively just an extension of her.”

Jesri remembered her team stopping dead at the segment boundary. Orders, they had said. The parts of her mind rebelling against the evidence were shoved aside to rage in a corner, accruing grief for a later date. Too much of it made sense to disregard, and if David was telling the truth-

Lights snapped on suddenly in the room and outside along the hallway, making them wince and shield their eyes. Shouts of alarm came from the hallway outside, and she heard the sounds of Irri running.

“Not good,” David said urgently. “They’ve managed to reconnect this segment to the power grid. Colonel Tam’s troops will be able to cross over and attack the village.”

“It should take them a few minutes to cross from the segment door, even at top speed,” Jesri said, her head still spinning. “We can move everyone towards the next segment-”

“No,” rattled Qktk. “They’re already here. Remember? Drinni and the others.”

Se Dasi’s eyes widened in panic and realization. “The touched. Father!”

From the village they heard a loud crash, then screaming.