“I don’t know if you can hear me in there, but Val’s gonna be okay,” said Markus. “Commander patched him up alright. We can replace the leg if we get the engines running, too.”

Lilith lay listlessly in the medical bed, staring up at the ceiling. Markus turned her head to look at the bed next to her, where Val was unconscious, an improvised tourniquet still tied over the stump of his right leg. She stared blankly at it.

“Apparently he cauterized the stump by ripping the power source out of the resonator,” Markus told her. “Then he had to get it plugged back in because we needed him to make it self-destruct. We all thought the dryads got him, but when the commander found him, he was lying in this pile of bodies. He held them long enough for the resonator to take out the rest when it blew. Totally out of bullets. There’s no way the commander doesn’t note him for a commendation after that, eh?”

Lilith continued staring at Val. Occasionally she blinked.

“It’s, uh,” Markus said. “I’m glad we got out of there. It’s too bad about all this. Normally they don’t do soul augments on people under fifty, you know? Not really enough time for your self-concept to really develop. I worried a bit, when I heard you had a cloak. Like, shit, soul augments are pretty iffy to begin with, but cloaking? It’s too much. Sometimes you end up with,” he gestured vaguely, “vegetables. Can you hear me in there?”

When she didn’t make any indication of hearing him, Markus turned her head back and propped her up a bit on the pillow. That left her staring at the wall behind him. She should probably respond.

Markus watched her for a while.

“Alright,” he said. “Well, if you can hear me, let us know when you wake up. Between you and me, the commander’s worried out of her mind about you. She’s trying not to show it, but you run around with someone for half a century, you pick stuff up, you know? She’s way more expressive than on her last body, too, it’s much easier to figure out. What I’m saying is, she’ll be too happy to chew you out… well, much. So don’t let that stop you coming back.”

He patted her knee and stood up.

“Hope you’re alright, Lilith. I’m going to go chat with Abby about our next steps.”

Lilith didn’t watch him go.

*

“That’s the issue, commander: as a technical matter, I can’t get to her comm. The cloak is too complete,” Val said wearily, looking at Lilith’s bed. She wasn’t there. “I can try to spoof us into Markus’s frequency, but it’s an imperfect solution, and a security concern besides.”

“I think you’ve earned that trust,” said Markus.

“Possession, indoctrination, mind control, consumed by a god,” said Val, ticking them off on his fingers. “It’s not an issue of trust, Markus, although I appreciate the gesture.”

“Could we penetrate the cloak with a scan?” asked Abby.

“Presumably,” said Val. “What would that accomplish? It’s not an issue of communicating with her—there’s no her to communicate with. Her self-concept is entirely collapsed.”

“We could see her, at least,” Abby said.

“Ah,” said Val. “I’ll rig up an optical camera with an etheric scrubber. Kriamin’s lab managed to bypass etheric cloaking two years ago by pointing to the idea of the subject rather than the subject themselves. I can take a look over his research notes.”

“You’ve got Dr. Kriamin’s research notes? I thought he hated you.”

“Abby,” Val said chidingly.

“Ah,” she said.

Lilith continued staring into space. Her body blinked when it needed to. It needed food. Lilith’s friends would take care of that eventually.

“I’d like to hear your thoughts on the strategic situation,” said the commander. “This location was innocuous enough, but with that obviously divine tree poking into the atmosphere, we’ll have pilgrims blundering through within the month.”

“I agree that we should move,” said Markus. “It might be worth sticking around to watch their crisis response.”

“We have the cameras in place,” Val said. “If we stay in signal range, we don’t need to be local. If we deploy a couple of low-orbit transmitters, we can extend our operational range even further. It would be an investment of resources.”

“We’re in a critical window for establishing a foothold here,” said the commander. The others nodded; she had centuries of experience on them. “Conservation wouldn’t be as much a concern if the translation engines were passing precision checks—by the way, Val, you still need to give me a technical breakdown on that. I need you walking again. As it stands, we have six transmitters ready to deploy, and our future requirements are difficult to predict. The nearest town is thirty miles away. If we touch down there, one transmitter will be more than enough. We can attempt to retrieve it after concluding operations in this locality.”

“As technical officer, I should point out that the angel recognized the etheric cloaking technique,” said Val. “The transmitter uses the same technique; we might lose it depending on their available countermeasures.”

“I don’t think so,” said Markus. “Tall, dark, and handsy’s best idea was to hit everything in the combat area, and he didn’t even get us. It’ll be even less effective in space.”

“If they do have a viable countermeasure, we gain valuable tactical information,” said the commander. “We’ll take the chance. But since you bring it up, Val, were you able to derive the etheric signature of this Meris deity?”

“I’ve, ah, been occupied,” he said.

She grimaced. “When you have a moment, then. How many more signatures do you need to crack the pantheon?”

“Two or three more to get the complete picture, I think,” said Val.

The commander nodded. “Markus, get me a landing zone.”

“Yes’m,” he said, rising to leave. “Hang in there, Lilith.”

Lilith didn’t respond. The commander looked at the bed, glancing past the body under the sheets. She seemed to strain for a moment, but the effort receded.

“A friend of a friend went through this, once,” said Abby. “I hope this one doesn’t go that way.”

“How did it resolve?” Val asked, pulling his bedside console onto what was left of his lap. He began typing.

“He came back eventually,” said Abby. “It was a worse case than this; he’d taken some kind of spiritual attack and used the cloak to protect his consciousness.”

“Oops,” said Val.

“All of the trainings say never to do it, and everyone I’ve talked to with a cloak says they do it anyway,” said Abby. “On deicide missions, the moments you tend to take crippling injuries are the moments you can’t be distracted by the pain.”

“That follows, I suppose,” said Val. “You said he came back. Were there lasting effects?”

“It took seventy years,” said Abby. “He retired afterward.”

“Ah.” Val continued typing.

Abby looked at the bed. “When can you get that camera set up?”

“If you can get me the supplies from the armory, I can do it from here,” said Val. “Personally, I just had my comm overlay an image of Lilith on the bed.”

“We can’t actually see her that way,” said Abby.

“You can’t see her through the camera, either.” Val looked up at her. “You’ll see a digital representation of the physical matter of her body, coupled with the idea of her.”

“Reductionist,” Abby accused him.

“Structuralist,” he accused her. They traded adversarial smiles. Val got back to work. Abby turned to the bed, where Lilith’s body was currently hiding from her perception.

“Hey Lilith,” Abby said. “We’re gonna get you out of this. Whatever it takes. Your survival is my responsibility. I’ll figure out a way to bring you back.”

“She doesn’t want to come back, or she’d be back already,” said Val. “There is no she. There is no volition. It’s just a soul.”

“Val!” said Abby. “What the fuck are you saying?”

Yeah, that was pretty rude. Lilith might be upset if she were responding to anything right now. But in the depths of the fugue, she just lay there as if dead.

“I’m saying,” Val said, “that right now she’s fighting nonexistence, and she’s losing. She wouldn’t be here in the first place if she’d sharpened her willpower to persist under the cloak. This is a failure.”

Lilith might have breathed a little faster. But they couldn’t see her under the cloak. They’d never wake her up without feedback.

“Val,” said Abby warningly.

He looked at her, tilting his head. A slight buzz of etheric communication on a private channel. The anger on her face slipped away, replaced by blankness.

“No,” she said. “I don’t want to risk driving her away. Good thought, though. Next time run it by me before taking an action like that. Markus should have been informed as well.”

“I suppose it was too much to hope that insulting her would provoke a response,” he said. “It does when she’s awake.”

“I said stop,” said Abby.

“Commander?” he asked innocently.

“One hundred and twenty-three years, Val. You’re not as smooth as you think.” She stood up, clapping him on the shoulder as she exited. “If you continue trying to annoy Lilith out of her coma, I will hang you from Kives’s new holy site and let the angels take your other limbs. Are we clear?”

“Exceedingly.”

“Good.” The commander smiled. “I’ll be back with the materials for your camera.”

*

They’d lifted off and relocated to the nearby town, which they’d learned from their initial surveillance period was called Elsinat. Ironically, they’d never learned the name of Torgaior’s village, its inhabitants having never used it in conversation while under observation. From what Markus said, it sounded like it was harder to find a landing spot, and the ship had circled for nearly a day while they did scans with the moirascope. Eventually they’d landed in the sea, far enough from shore that the ship could fully submerge. That was when the translation engines had their first real stress-test since the team’s arrival.

They’d scanned the surrounding area, Markus told Lilith, and had the ship create a tunnel straight through the ground. Dirt and stone could be translated to firmament, which they’d sunk into the walls, ceiling, and floor of the tunnel to keep them stable. The tunnel had been reinforced with steel and ended with a vertical shaft. The translator engines had struggled with output precision, so after several failed attempts they’d just gotten an extendable ladder out of the cargo bay and secured it to the wall.

Then the commander ordered Val to stand on top of the ladder and learn some important lessons about the meaning of friendship so the growth energy could be translated into a crude wooden cottage, which was a much better cover than a spaceship.

Markus somehow managed to keep a straight face for that whole part of the explanation.

“There were trees nearby,” said Val. “We used those.”

“Spoken like a man who needs to learn some important lessons about friendship!” said Markus.

The commander entered the room, meaning the meeting could begin.

“I had a thought,” said Markus. “I’m sure she can hear us. Right, Lilith?”

Lilith might have been grateful for that, if she’d been cognizant of it.

“She’s trying to rebuild her self-concept, so we can remind her of who she is. Maybe we all take turns telling her what we think of her. Could give her a road back.”

“It’s worth a try,” said Abby. “I could start now.”

“What a facile solution,” said Val.

“You’re just jealous you didn’t think of it first,” said Markus. Lilith would have said it first if she’d been there.

“Will you give it a sincere attempt?” asked Abby.

“Naturally,” said Val.

“I’ll start,” said Markus. “The Lilith I know is energetic, driven, and a great shot with a plasma lance. You’re so fierce, too. Always give me a run for my money when we spar. When we fought that angel, I thought you were actually going to pull off a kill. I’m proud of you, Lils. I know you’ll pull through this.”

Lilith stared at the wall behind them. It was nice that Markus liked his friend so much.

“The Lilith I know,” said Abby, “is irrepressible. You’re young, but you’re bright and capable, and you grow so fast. You’ve been on the team for two years and you act like a veteran of five. You face things that would scare the shit out of most people and spit in their eyes. I’m looking forward to the rest of your career, so I hope you can come back and resume it.”

Scaring the shit out of others. Lilith had never thought of it that way. If you’re going to fall, fall forward. Go down swinging. Struggle until you run out of breath.

Lilith was breathing just fine right now.

“The Lilith I know,” said Val, “is drowning.”

“Val!” said Abby and Markus simultaneously.

“You think she thinks of herself as just the bubbly parts?” he challenged them. “She’s angry. Four years ago something unthinkable ate part of her soul, and she’s still taking a swing at everything in reach to prove it won’t happen again.”

Lilith didn’t respond, but those were cutting words. It hurt to hear. The pain, the fear, wanting so badly to just hit something. To kill it so dead it couldn’t hurt me again.

“He’s got a point,” said Markus, looking at Abby. “Lil’s got her petty moments. Like when she said I got arrested for stealing muscle oil from the king’s palace.”

Hey! That was completely justified.

“The Lilith I know...” said Abby. She sighed, relented. “...is far too excited to play with dangerous firearms. And often insubordinate, besides.”

“You’re right that she’s clever, in her own way,” said Val. Couldn’t find a non-backhanded way to phrase it, huh? “Ambitious. But it gets her in over her head sometimes.”

“Oh man, remember that one time with the plague god?” asked Markus. “And she got herself backed into the altar with just a hand amplifier and that bottle of soap from her home?”

Abby laughed. “And she was just like, ‘Watch out, this kills 99% of germs!’”

They all laughed at that. Lilith’s cheeks reddened. Just a little. But it was a reaction.

“But we love her anyway,” said Abby. Silence fell.

It felt right. The positive stuff had been a little stilted. But—they knew her. It was a road back. Back to—what? To me? I tried to reach back.

“Is she reacting, Markus?” asked Abby. “The camera’s not showing a difference.”

“Maybe a little?” he said. “I’m sorry, the idea sounded good.”

No, no, they couldn’t leave me. They wouldn’t. They were Lilith’s friends.

“We could try it again,” said Abby. “Once a day or so. It’s not a burden.”

I need you now! I wanted to yell.

Val shifted slightly, narrowing his eyes.

“They fall,” he said softly.

“They die,” I croaked.

I feebly turned off the cloak and was immediately buried in hugs.