How close are they? She impulsed up to her drone.

Finder’s voice echoed back through her implants. They’ve stopped.

Khadam looked up at the crest of the dune. The hill rose, as fat and tall as a porter’s frigate, so that it cast a long, dark shadow over the glass-black ocean. She could just make out Finder’s silhouette against the white light of the sun.

They’ve stopped?

Yes, his voice filtered in through her mind, as clear as if he was standing next to her. Clearer. They’re looking at me. I think they’re afraid of me.

Well, that would give her more time. Khadam didn’t know why, but her heart was hammering in her chest as she made the final cuts on the bike.

What did they want?

What were they like?

They would be the first people Khadam had met in thousands of years. She had to know.

Ribeiro, her old friend and even older mentor, had told her to bring a weapon. A carbine. A handheld. Damn it, Khadam. Bring a knife at least. But she had refused. Taking only her goggles, and her favorite kit of tools. Space was limited, after all.

And so far, nothing had attacked her. Until Finder found the nomads, she hadn’t known there was anything alive on this sand-blasted planet.

The bike wasn’t going to get any better. She had been holding out, hoping that Finder would scavenge just a few better parts. But now, there wasn’t any time.

When she was younger, she might have cursed herself. Why did I take so long? Why did I wait? But that wouldn’t help her get this finished any faster, so she quieted that part of her mind, and moved deliberately with the torch, as fast as she dared.

She had been building it for over a month, working on the designs as she went. The whole grid was down, which meant she had nothing to draw from, no shortcuts but the ones she could remember.

She mounted the core in the middle, and fastened her seat on top of that.

And then, it was done. It felt too soon. Too sudden.

Khadam wiped the grease off her brow with the back of her arm, pulling grit and sand with it. The bike was what Ribeiro would have called “an abomination.” She could almost hear him screaming it at her, his exaggerated outrage. Khadam! What nightmare machine have you brought into this beautiful life?

But she was rather proud of it.

The nosecone of her drop pod formed the better part of the chassis, and its serial number was still visible, an indentation in the metal. The seat, the handles, the rear sets - all of those were made from pieces of scrap metal, welded together. Mostly from her own crash, but a couple of things that Finder had gone ranging for over the last weeks, on his other trips out into the gray desert. Radiator gills, hand-designed and hand-cut, lined the sides.

Well. It’s not pretty, but it’ll fly.

There were six repulsors pods, one on each corner and two connected to a gimbal she could control manually and by impulse. And the stabilizer… well, as long as she was balancing on the bike, it would get the job one. But the moment she stepped off, the whole thing would wander. Or tip.

Or both.

Finder, she impulsed. Are they still waiting?

Yup, he said. They haven’t moved. It’s a bit creepy, if you ask me.

That meant she had time to test. Before she closed up the wiring, she flicked on the repulsors, and twisted the throttle.

VWOOOM!

The power core roared to life, before falling down to a low hum.

Each repulsor pod blazed with energy, lifting the bike off the tarp, blowing the fabric and swirls of sand around her feet. She had to cover her face to keep the grit out of her eyes.

Damn, Khadam thought, I’m good.

Part of her expected Ribeiro to snort. To knock her down a peg or two. It was like a phantom, living in the back of her mind.

He’s gone, Khadam. They’re all gone.

Khadam held the break, and the front two repulsors glowed brighter, locking the bike into place. And when she moved the throttle, she felt the lift from the gimballed repulsors, struggling to push the bike forward.

The metal chassis creaked against the strain. One bolt in particular looked precarious. But it was working, and it was more than enough.

Khadam turned off the bike. Pushed the last of the wires back inside, and closed it up. Twisting a bolt there, or pushing against a piece of scrap here.

And then, she couldn’t bear it any longer. She had to see them.

The hill was huge, and the hike was steep, but it calmed her nerves to climb. By now, she had grown used to walking on the soft mountain made of sand and ash. Her feet slipped, but if she stayed low, she could use her hands to dig into the cold sand and pull herself up.

She stopped only a few arm lengths from the top of the hill, trying to stay out of sight. Finder was floating out in the open, serving as sentry and as warning. Wind blew sand and dark ash in streams through the air, hissing slightly against Finder’s metal body.

“What are they doing?” Khadam asked.

“Waiting,” he said. His voice bending musically on each syllable. “Watching.”

“What do you think they want?”

“You know what I think.”

Khadam gripped a fistful of cold sand, and pulled herself up. Peeking over the edge.

The dune’s height was dizzying. Thousands of parallel ridges snaked down into the valley of sand. Distance blended them into a single, gray texture. The shadow of another dune cut through the valley, and that’s where they were. Clustered against the very edge of the shadow.

She couldn’t blame them for avoiding the sun. Her wrist implant had been screaming at her the last few weeks about her radiation intake, but what could she do?

All the way up here, the nomads looked like slender specks of black. If she squinted, she could just make out their long, flowing robes. Some of them wore nothing at all. And some of them were crouched on all fours. Behind them were three long rectangles, covered in black fabric.

“What are those?”

“Sleds,” Finder. “To haul their belongings across the desert.”

What do they eat? Where do they come from?

And so many other questions flooded her thoughts.

“I want to talk with them,” Khadam said.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“What if they’re friendly?”

“Khadam.”

“What if they have supplies to trade? Or information?”

“What information?” Finder said.

If he were human, if he were not governed by his programming, he might take a harder stance. But he was just a drone, so all he could do was try to make her see his logic. His point of view.

“Khadam, I’ve crossed eighteen thousand kilometers of desert in the last month alone. I’ve seen four separate tribes of these nomads. The sand, the nomads, the desert. There’s nothing here. They have nothing to tell you.”

“How can you say that? This is their home. Maybe they know things you don’t.”

And before he could say anything else, she climbed on top of the crest. Her feet sank into the sand, making rivers that ran down both sides of the hill. She tucked her hair behind her ear, letting the wind pull the rest out of her face.

For a moment, all the nomads - their distant silhouettes - seemed to draw more tightly together. Becoming a single black shape against all that gray.

She waved.

And then, there was a scream. It was a mortal sound. A cracking, shrieking sound that pulled up from the depths of the valley, carried by the wind. If she hadn’t been listening, she wouldn’t have heard it.

“Uh, Khadam?”

As one, the nomads lurched forward. As if compelled all by the same force. Something about it made her feel uneasy.

“Khadam,” Finder pleaded.

They were fast. So much faster than they ought to be. The four-legged ones raced ahead of the others, zigzagging through the valley. Before she could think, they started climbing the base of her hill. Compared to her slow, labored climbing, they seemed to almost glide over the sand.

Shit.

Khadam took a step back, her left heel sinking into the cold sand.

Something primal kicked on inside of her. All the breath was sucked out of her lungs.

She turned around, and started to run. Taking huge, leaping steps down the hill, bounding towards their camp. Towards the great gray sea. She stumbled and slid and dropped and fell and ran and ran, and Finder floated next to her, urging her onward.

Before she reached the flat plane of the beach, Finder chirped an alarm.

There were three of them, skittering down the hill. More of those boar-things. Their exoskeletons glistening in the sunlight. They didn’t bark, so much as chitter and chirp at each other.

And high above, the rest of them crested the dune. Again, that mortal, piercing screech echoed down from the hillside.

Two of the boar-things ran in front of her. Trying to herd her into the third. Khadam almost didn’t make it to her bike.

Finder threw himself at one of the boar-things, his claws extended, his repulsors kicking up plumes of sand.

The boar-thing yelped - at first in surprise, and then in pain, as Finder’s claws caught its head and wrenched. It’s cry was cut short. The body fell to the sand with a whumpf.

But the other two were on her now, snapping at her heels as she climbed on the bike. And punched the throttle.

It sputtered and the repulsors fluttered to life, their brilliant light making the two beasts yelp and leap back. But there was something wrong.

Something she had forgotten to test.

The throttle worked. The bike had lift. But it had no thrust.

“Finder!” Khadam yelled over the hum over the core.

“Khadam, look!” Finder shouted back. He pointed with a free claw at the dune.

They were sliding down, skating down the ridge over the sand. All of them screaming that same, awful scream.

One of them, a tall, slender thing, had taken off its robe, revealing a set of four diaphanous wings. On any world other than this, it might’ve been beautiful. She could see each dark vein outlined in the glassy membrane of its wings. The wings fluttered once, twice. And then, began to buzz faster than she could see.

The nomad took flight. Its shadow raced across the sand.

Both of the boar-things were circling around her again. Sensing her distress. Closing in.

Khadam put her foot on the sand, and kicked as hard as she could. The bike moved, perfectly frictionless. But it was still way too slow.

“Drag me!”

The drone rushed to her side, circling around her front. He latched two claws onto the handlebars, and pulled as fast as he could, his own repulsor flaring with light.

They hovered over the wet sand. Over the first, slender sheets of water. And over the gently lapping waves of the ocean. It was all she could do to stay on the bike and kick at the beasts as they leaped through the water, splashing her with near-freezing wetness, clapped their mandibles at her legs.

Waves threatened to push them back, but still they kept jumping at her. She screamed at them. Even when the water grew too deep, they started to swim. Their eyes, huge, bulging things made of thousands of interlocking black scales, were fixated only on her.

The others, the slender upright nomads, were wading through the tide, too. They had tools - rusted pieces of sharpened metal that they could not have made themselves. But she had an advantage. She didn’t have to fight the water.

Still, even when she was out of their reach, they kept coming. Dragging themselves through the deepening water, frothing at their mandibles.

A shadow passed over them. And with it, the buzzing wings descended. Sharp claws. Long limbs. Hard, segmented skin. It fell on her in an instant. Screeching.

Khadam threw her hand out, not even thinking. The spiked ridges of the nomads skin tore the back of her hand open. She screamed.

It was Finder who saved her. He clamped his whole body on the winged nomad, on its back. Crushing it at the root of her wings. He didn’t tear it in half, but it was close.

Then, he dropped the nomads body.

It plummeted into the water with a splash. And even as it began to sink - its wings twitching badly, and a yellow-green leaking out of its spine - the nomad kept coming. Trying to crawl through the water toward Khadam. Making an awful hissing sound as it clawed. Sank. Clawed itself back up. Made one last drowning hiss, and disappeared behind a wave.

And then, it was quiet. All she could hear was the lapping of the water, the distant crash of the shore, and the hum of the repulsors. Even the splashing of the other nomads was gone.

Finder came back. Gave her bike one more push, and then floated alongside her. It held its momentum as she moved ever deeper over that solid, black water. The sea yawned before her.

Her hand was throbbing, and blood was dripping down her wrist. Her implant was screaming at her, and she accepted its recommendation. A numbing agent flooded up from her implant, and the bots in her blood began to swarm out. Already clotting the blood and attempting to thread new skin in place.

Within a few minutes, the throbbing had eased to a dull ache. Finally, she could catch her breath again.

Behind her, the dune where she had spent the last month of her life - the first month of her new life, after waking up alone in the wake of humanity’s extinction - receded until she couldn’t pick it out from the other dunes that marched along the sea’s edge. Rolling on and on. Until they became a thin, grey line on the horizon.

“Are you okay?” Finder asked.

It was one of the things she liked most about him. He never rubbed in her mistakes. Never judged her. Some droids loved to gloat, or loved to lecture, or loved to make a point. But Finder wasn’t like that.

“All my stuff is back there.”

“I don’t think we should go back.”

“Guess you were right,” she said, and forced a smile, despite the disappointment - the anger - roiling inside her. How could I be so stupid?

I could have at least gotten my gear together first.

Her food. Her canteen.

Her tools.

But that was in the past. And all she could do was move forward.

“I’m going to try to rewire the thrusters. You know where the ship is?” Khadam asked.

“East and east, Khadam. East and east.”