The Iron Raven — unpained and untouched by Howl's network permissions — flexed her mutilated arm, the one Shilu had hacked off. The shredded remains of the severed limb jerked and twitched where it lay on Pheiri's bone-armoured hull; black flesh deliquesced into oily silver flux, flowed across the deck like boiling mercury, and climbed the Necromancer's leg, to rejoin her body.

Her arm sprouted anew, swelling from the ragged stump in branches of tendon and columns of bone, quickly sheathed in black iron flesh. The arm had too many elbows now, and the fist sported half a dozen extra claws.

"Perpetua warned you, huh?" Howl said through Elpida's throat. "That jilted cow?"

"Forewarned and forsworn," the Iron Raven croaked and whistled from deep inside her massive black beak. She twisted her restored arm, flexing her talons. "Pain is for the dead. Means you, ghost-shit."

Howl snorted through Elpida's clenched teeth. "Guess we can't just pump and dump you, huh? You need wining and dining before you're ready for my ride? High-maintenance cunt isn't really my type."

The Necromancer's black talons sang with vibration as she spread her arms wide, preparing to crush Elpida's head between her fists. Her beak was incapable of expression, but her matching black eyes twinkled with cruel finality. She clenched her taloned feet, scraping against Pheiri's armour, towering over Elpida, over Howl, rising taller against the mottled grey background of the graveworm.

"Dead have no types!" croaked the Raven. "Dead is dead is dead!"

Howl ripped Elpida's face into a grin. "Guess we gotta do you rough, you fucking lawn dart!"

The Iron Raven screeched like a bird of prey wrought from molten metal; her taloned fists arced inward, black knives leaving smeared streaks in the air, singing like tortured throats. Howl barked a laugh right in her face, then dived aside, ducking and twisting away from the screaming claws. She landed in a loose combat roll, amputated arm tucked tight to Elpida's side.

Howl rolled well and landed better, but Elpida still felt the impact — jarring and juddering as Pheiri raced onward, the deck bucking and lurching and rising up to meet her face. A strangled grunt was trapped in her throat, pinned by her loss of control.

Elpida was a passenger in her own body. The Necromancer's revenant interdiction permissions still held, or else Serin would still be firing. Without Howl piloting her body, Elpida would be frozen too. Pheiri carried them all toward an uncertain salvation, and Howl carried Elpida, for as long as they could buy time. The comms headset was dead too, silenced by Necromancer permissions. Elpida and Howl were on their own.

Howl jackknifed Elpida's body back to her feet and almost overbalanced as Pheiri's hull slewed to one side, skidding on a current of storm-water and concrete slurry beneath his tracks.

Shilu leapt forward to resume her duel with the Iron Raven. Black-steel arm-blades met the Raven's talons with a clash of metal, scraping and whirling, chopping and stabbing. The Raven's talons woke into a whirlwind of slashing and slamming and pounding and punching.

Howl! Elpida snapped inside her own head. What happened? What was that?

She's hardened the others! Howl snarled. Perpetua! She must have dug through her own permissions, figured out what I'd changed. Fuck, fuck! She shouldn't have been able to do that!

Shilu carved steaming chunks of metal and meat from the Raven's body — slices of arm muscle, slabs of metallic flesh, handfuls of splintered bone from within. But every chunk of Necro-flesh turned to oily silver liquid and rejoined the Raven's main body a second later; every stab wound and deep laceration closed in the blink of an eye. The Iron Raven forced Shilu back step by grinding step, then landed a haymaker punch on Shilu's gut, all spikes and talons. That blow would have disembowelled a zombie. Shilu grunted with the impact, sliding back across the shifting deck, scrambling to keep her footing. Her black metal abdomen and chest were dented and warped, bowing inward.

The Iron Raven spread her massive gangly arms and clacked her beak up and down, snap snap snap. "Necromancer no-more never-more! What you were before, you weren't very good at it!"

Shilu leapt for the Raven once again, weaving and ducking and dodging, slipping beneath the Necromancer's guard, slicing and cutting and carving.

"Shilu!" Howl shouted through Elpida's mouth. "Shilu, don't—"

Howl, Elpida cut in, quick and calm. Don't distract Shilu, she's buying us time.

Time for what!? Howl spat. Time for us to get—

Time for a plan, Elpida snapped, voice hard with command. Sometimes even Howl needed external certainty. Keep moving, withdraw toward the hatch, but don't go inside. If we can keep that Necro out here, hunting us, that buys more time for the others. There's a pistol in my left—

Pocket, yeah, got it, got it!

Howl drew Elpida's pistol with her left hand. The weapon lacked stopping power, certainly against a Necromancer, but it was better than nothing. More importantly it gave Howl something to do.

Howl withdrew toward the hatch with little hopping footsteps, bouncing on the balls of Elpida's feet; her balance was bad, all wrong for the size of Elpida's body, made worse by the uneven footing as Pheiri accelerated across the broken landscape, his hull bouncing and lurching, the deck tilting as he mounted drifts of concrete and descended the slopes of shattered structures. Howl raised the pistol in Elpida's hand and pumped off three bullets toward the Iron Raven; all three rounds slammed through black iron flesh and tore a mess of blood and black ichor out of the Necromancer's back. But the wounds closed in an eye-blink. Lost biomass flowed back into position moments later.

This Necromancer was not running limited, nor reeling under the burden of pain, nor trammelled by the network. They needed an advantage, and they needed it fast.

Howl, can you break the software hardening? Whatever Perpetua taught her—

Fuck yeah I can, but we don't have enough time! Give me like six hours and sure, I'll have that oversized magpie screaming for your fingers up her cunt, but we don't have six minutes, let alone six hours!

Howl kept backing up, but the hatch was near. The Iron Raven was hammering Shilu down like a crooked nail. One of Shilu's arm-blades was bent, the other was chipped from where the Raven's talons had cut into the metal. Shilu's expression showed no change, always that white mask, but her eyes were wide with effort.

Pheiri's missile pods and autocannons were still twitching as they tried to get a bead on the Iron Raven. But unloading his weapons directly into his own armour could cause catastrophic damage. He would probably survive, but not without potentially lethal wounds.

Twelve feet in either direction and Pheiri could engage the Necro himself, Elpida said. All we have to do is draw her one way or the other.

Howl growled with frustration. Shit, yeah, you're right! She's torn herself a blind spot!

Can you break the physical interdiction on Serin? On the drones?

Howl hissed between her teeth. Not without leaving your body. And then only by like, jumping into Serin. And she can't do anymore than we can, can she?

Elpida tried to think. They needed more firepower, and they needed it right now. Once the Raven overcame Shilu, she would cut through Elpida and Howl like wet paper, and she'd be down inside Pheiri within seconds. There was almost nothing between her and the others, between the Necromancer and Pheiri's insides.

Shit, Elps! Howl said. We gotta shut the hatch, at least make her dig for it!

Elpida couldn't help herself; for a split-second she imagined Pheiri opened up, a wound right through his superstructure, laying his innards exposed to the pursuing Necromancers. She imagined his crew — her new cadre, her comrades, her friends — peeled out of his shell by Necromancer talons. She imagined the meat-plant project, the one revolutionary possibility they had kindled, dashed into the storm-waters and trodden into the broken concrete.

She imagined the zombies they had helped and fed, discovering Pheiri's broken corpse.

Elps. Howl's voice was shaking. No—

We have no choice. While Shilu is still in the fight, we take the Necro from the side. Shoulder charge, full body weight. If we can knock her off her feet, my body weight alone should be enough carry her at least ten feet, maybe more, maybe—

You'll fucking die!

But Pheiri won't. The others won't. And you won't either, Howl. You leave my head before it happens, before Pheiri has to open up with his guns. Go into one of the others. Victoria will understand you.

Elps, no! Come on, I can … I can leave your head right now, dive into the network and … and duel this bitch myself!

You'd die, Howl. We both know that.

Howl keened through clenched teeth, inside Elpida's head. What, it's me or you, Elps!? No, fuck no, come on there's gotta be—

Howl. Charge her. Do it now, before the Necro overpowers Shilu. This is our only opening.

I … I can't! Elpida, I can't … I don't want to … to lose—

This is an order, Elpida said. It's one of us, or it's Pheiri and everyone. I choose myself. Spend me, Howl. Spend me for Telokopolis.

Howl stopped retreating. She jammed the pistol back in Elpida's pocket; Elpida's left hand was shaking. She gritted Elpida's teeth and raised Elpida's one remaining fist. She opened her mouth and howled at the top of her lungs.

"Telokopolis is forever!"

Shilu was forced down to one knee, swaying with each impact, her chest and face scored with dozens of claw-marks. Howl broke into a sprint, running Elpida's body directly at the collapsing duel, at the Iron Raven.

The Raven landed one final side-swipe on Shilu, connecting a barbed fist with her upper torso. Shilu's strength gave out, one arm buckled; the impact slammed her aside. Shilu crashed against an outcrop of Pheiri's bone-armour with a clatter of loose metal.

The Iron Raven looked up at Elpida — at Howl, racing right for her. The black beak opened in a lipless laugh. Howl opened Elpida's mouth and roared a war cry.

Elpida felt tears on her cheeks.

Howl? I—

A side-swipe shock-wave of noise and heat and pressure almost knocked Howl off Elpida's feet.

A volley of firepower ripped past on Elpida's right, anti-materiel rounds and energy bolts and plasma spheres, close enough to singe the tips of her hair and nip the trailing edge of her armoured coat.

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The sudden barrage slammed into the Iron Raven, chewing through flesh, burning away meat, pulping her innards, and almost punching her head off her neck. The Necromancer tried to adapt, letting solid-shot rounds pass through her body, regenerating the damage from the energy bolts so fast that her flesh crawled and squirmed like a carpet of maggots. But the two kinds of firepower worked in tandem, outrunning the Necromancer's nanomachine biology, forcing her back and forth between biochemical strategies too fast to enjoy the benefits of either one.

Howl and Elpida skidded to a halt and scrambled aside, lest they cross the stream of firepower.

A giant stepped past them, dressed in robe and rag, in bulletproof plates and curtains of fabric, wrapped in liquid armour and shifting cuttlefish-camouflage, topped with a eyeless black helmet, pouring firepower into the Necromancer from a massive rifle and a quartet of chrome-and-black energy weapons, held in six massive arms.

Hafina, armoured up and armed for Necro.

Howl barked a laugh through Elpida's lips. "Fuck yeah, android girl! You shove that rifle up her fucking arse!"

A softer crack-crack-crack-crack came from behind Elpida, back by the hatch. Melyn, tiny grey-faced head poking out from behind the paralysed Serin, taking aim with a lightweight handgun.

Pheiri's original organic infantry support.

Inorganic you mean, ha! Howl spat.

But for all Hafina's incredible hand-held firepower, the Necromancer only skidded back a few feet. Her black talons dug into Pheiri's hide, anchoring her against the torrent of bullets and bolts. She lost biomass in a swelling tide of shredded flesh, arcing out behind her in loops and streams of blood and guts and iron-black meat — but it all returned as quickly as it was torn away, flowing back in airborne arcs of silver fluid.

She regenerated as fast as Hafina could destroy her. Howl drew Elpida's pistol and added her tiny contribution, emptying the magazine at the Necromancer's chest.

The Iron Raven took a single step forward, talons cutting into Pheiri's bone-armour, striding into the barrage as if walking into the wind.

"You can't fire forever, robot!" she whistled at Hafina. "Cut you, gut you, eat your shiny chrome inner-parts! Twelve more paces!"

"Nah," said Hafina — and stopped firing.

The Iron Raven tumbled forward with inertia, loops of flesh and bio-matter sucking back inside her, head snapping up in surprise.

A pair of tiny grey streaks slammed into her from the side while was off balance — two of Kagami's miniature gravitic drones, hitting her with their gravity projection fields at full power.

The Necromancer was thrown aside as if hit by Pheiri himself. A blur of black iron flesh shot between Pheiri's weapon mounts and out into open space. For a split-second she was a comet of metal and limbs and ragged skin, trailing streamers of crimson blood and blackened meat.

A dozen of Pheiri's weapon systems opened up, blotting out the Necromancer with sheer weight of firepower. His shields blinked out for a split-second with a concussive snap of pressure, to allow the Necromancer's tumbling form to pass through. The shields flashed back into position with a crackle of static and a flicker of bright white fire.

The Iron Raven crashed to the ground, fifty feet out. Pheiri kept her pinned with autocannon fire, churning the rubble with missiles, pounding the Necromancer into the broken concrete and dirty water. The pulped crater dwindled as Pheiri sped away.

Elpida took a deep breath as the network interdiction lifted. Howl released her control.

"Shouldn't do everything on your own, Elpida," Hafina said from inside her helmet. "Gotta axe for help. Get it? Axe. Heh."

"Thank you, Haf," Elpida said. "Thank you for the assist."

"Kaga helped too. With the droneys. Nice little things."

Elps, Howl hissed inside Elpida's head. This was temporary, this shit isn't going to hold for long.

The comms headset crackled back to life; Elpida keyed the receiver. "Kagami?"

"Commander! Fucking hell!" Kagami screeched down the internal uplink. "You fucking suicidal dirt-sucking—"

"Kagami, I need you to focus. Right now."

A sharp intake of breath, but Kagami just let out back out again. "Fine. Focusing. Get on with it."

"Pheiri, you alright?"

Three soft pings instead of just one. Elpida had never heard Pheiri do that before.

"He's fine," Kagami growled. "Surface level armour damage, second degree. He'll need to draw on his own nanomachine reserves for repair, but he'll be fine."

"Good. Thank you for the firepower, Pheiri."

Another three pings. A pause. Then one more.

Elpida took stock. Serin was still crouched in the open hatch, lowering her rifle, though Melyn was gone again, back down inside. Hafina was helping Shilu to her feet. The ex-Necromancer's body was slowly fixing itself, claw-gouges slicking shut, dents filling out. The two small drones were nowhere to be seen, presumably pulled back down inside by Kagami. The two surviving heavy drones wobbled into the air on their own much weaker gravitic engines, then turned and headed for the hatch.

The deck still lurched and swayed with Pheiri's progress through the shattered corpse-city, threatening to toss Elpida from her feet with one wrong step. Stalks of black mold towered over Pheiri's hull now, their tips spreading into glistening branches of black frills and fluffy fronds. It reminded Elpida of the edge of the green.

Dead ahead, the graveworm consumed more of the sky with every second — a metal wall as high as the world, ridged and whorled in tiny patterns miles across.

"Kagami," Elpida said quickly. "Any sign of the worm-guard?"

"No, nothing, shit all!" Kagami snapped over the comms. "And the Necromancers are still gaining on us. That one I just pasted, she's already getting back up and growing fucking wings again. Commander, we're not going to make it to the graveworm!"

She's right, Elps, Howl hissed. One was bad enough. What do we do? Come on, what do we do?

Elpida gazed out at the graveworm's hide, at the jagged line swallowing the sky.

We talk.

… eh?

Elpida rounded on the others, raising her voice over the cry of the wind beyond Pheiri's shields, over the roar of his tracks and the crunch and grind of shattered concrete. "Everyone else back down inside! Get back inside!"

"Not on your life, Elpida," Hafina said.

Shilu staggered forward and shook her head. "Plan?"

From the open hatch, Serin just shrugged, but at least she stayed put.

Elpida almost laughed. "Right then. There won't be much to see though. Come on."

She headed forward, to the front of Pheiri's deck, where she could look out over his prow. She didn't have the time to enforce her orders, and if anybody was safe out here it was a Necromancer and one of Pheiri's original crew. The deck listed and lurched beneath her feet as she hurried across the pitted, scarred, bony surface.

"Kaga," she said into the comms headset. "Put me on the tightbeam."

"What? Commander?"

"My voice, on the tightbeam. Can you do that from this headset?" Elpida reached the front of the deck, where Pheiri's hull began to slope downward. She kept low and found a good grip on a gnarl of his armour. Hafina and Shilu stopped a few paces back, grabbing their own handholds.

Pheiri's prow crashed and smashed through the debris of the storm, splashing through streams and pools of filthy water, cutting through the masses of black mold creeping and crawling over every surface, swerving left and right to avoid the thickest copses of sprouting stalks. His front was filthy with fresh muck, concrete grit, and pulverised black goop.

"Done," Kagami said. "Where am I broadcasting? You want to negotiate with the Necromancers? It might be more difficult than you—"

"Point me at the worm."

A second of silence. "What?"

"The worm," Elpida repeated. "Point me at the graveworm, broadcast my voice."

"I don't know if you've noticed lately, but it's the size of a mountain range! Where exactly am I pointing you?! Do you have some insight to share? Does it have a fucking radar dish at one end? This is a serious question, because I don't know—"

"Sweep the beam back and forth. You're the expert. Whatever you have to do to get my voice through."

"Didn't you say it's probably dead—"

"Do it, Kaga. Now."

A moment's pause. "Alright. You're live. Good luck. Don't fuck up first contact, or whatever the hell this is."

Elpida raised her eyes and looked up at the leviathan bulk of the graveworm, the line of grey mountain across the horizon, the tsunami of imperishable metal falling forever on the nanomachine ecosystem.

"Heeeeeeey!" She raised her voice, shouting as if her words would carry on the wind. "Heeeey, graveworm! It's me! You remember me? Elpida? That's my name! Elpida! You spoke to me back in the tomb. You remember that? The tomb where we all woke up! You do remember me, I know you must do, and I remember you scratching around inside my head. Heeeey! Heeeey!"

Howl took over Elpida's lips for a moment: "Wake up, you dozy cunt! Wake the fuck up! Wake up! Fuck you, wake up!"

Howl?

If it's not dead, it's sleeping! Howl cackled. Why not? If this is our best chance, count me in.

"Wake up!" Elpida took up the chant. "Wake up! Wake up, graveworm! Wake up! The storm is over, wake—"

Mmmmmmmm …

A rumble inside Elpida's head, from a dry, cracked, sleep-clogged throat.

Howl, Elpida said. That wasn't you?

Nuh uh!

"I can hear you, graveworm!" Elpida shouted into her headset again. "Wake up! Rise and shine, right now! I know you can hear me! You better wake up, or I'm gonna keep shouting in your ear. Pay attention!"

Mmmm … the voice grumbled again. What … what is this?

Elpida felt a tingle in the back of her neck, up her scalp, behind her eyes. The worm was broadcasting directly into her neural lace.

"It's me!" Elpida shouted. "Elpida. Me and my friends, my comrades, my cadre. You remember me, graveworm? You remember us? Don't tell me you don't!"

A moment of silence. A distant wind, like a giant's breath. Then: Huuuugggnnh. Mm. Mmhmm. The soldier. Still out there, dead thing?

It sounded surprised and exhausted, but ultimately not very interested.

"Still up, still breathing, still here," said Elpida. "What about you? You alive over there?"

No less than you, zombie. Which means, not much. But then again, none of us ever were, were we? Always rotting, even when alive.

Elpida could barely believe this was working. The graveworm — or what had appeared to be the graveworm, at the time — had spoken to her once before, shortly after she and the others had awoken in the tomb, when they had descended into the tomb's armoury and disturbed the gravekeeper. The worm had seemed just as dismissive then, but perhaps more scornful. It had not spoken to her since.

"I'm not in the mood for a philosophical debate," Elpida said into her comms headset. "You've been sleeping on the job, graveworm. Where are your guards, your minions, your—"

Sleeping? Sleeping … yes … the voice murmured. All that rain outdoors. Such heavy raindrops. Went on for so long, as long as it used to. Reminded me of before …

So many questions were poised on Elpida's tongue. Had the worm once been a human being, a living person, before resurrection? Was this a memory of life?

But she couldn't spare the time. "The rain is over," she said. "It's time to wake up. Look around! Your guards are nowhere to be seen, your—"

Do you control your cells? Your immune system? I'm as much a passenger in this as you are, dead thing. The voice chuckled, soft and wet and clotted with mucus. You were a soldier, you should understand that.

"There are seven Necromancers closing on your hide, worm!" Elpida shouted. "We're leading them right to you, and if you don't wake up and start moving, we're all going to be on you soon enough!"

Necromancers? Mmm. You assume they can even scratch my skin. They're nothing, they're as small as you, just as—

Howl grabbed Elpida's mouth: "Come down here and help us, you giant metal turd!"

A moment of silence. Hmmmm? Soldier within a soldier. Curious. Where did you come from—

"From my mother's arms!" Howl screeched. "From the womb of Telokopolis! Fuck you, graveworm! Wake the fuck up and send your shit-eating gremlins against the bitches behind us, or I'll come back in something big, real big, and then I'll crack your shell and eat your brains!"

… her scent, on your breath.

The graveworm's inner voice cut off with a deep intake of breath. Elpida felt a tingle across her scalp — and then heard a distant rumble, not inside her head, but out there in the world of meat and concrete.

A ripple passed through the air, through the ground, a shaking that overpowered even the bumping and lurching of Pheiri's hull.

The jagged line against the sky, the wall at the edge of the world, the naked metal hide of the graveworm — moved.

It rose, rotating away from Pheiri's course, the nearest side lifting by what must have been mile after mile of grey metal. Concrete and water spilled from the whorls and spirals in giant cascades of loose matter, crashing to the ground with a distant roaring. The world itself seemed to shrug and shift. All of Elpida's experience and training and genetic hardening had not prepared her for this feeling, for the sight of something so large rolling over at the edge of slumber.

She was paralysed for just a moment, gazing up at a true giant in motion.

She could not help but compare. What if Telokopolis could take her skirts in hand, and walk free upon the earth?

Kagami's voice broke in over the comms: "Commander! Elpida! I don't know how you did that, but there's … there's a lot of worm-guard! I can't even— Pheiri can't—"

"Understood!" Elpida whirled around and pointed at Shilu and Hafina. "Back inside, right now!"

Shilu said, "Help is on the way?"

Howl laughed through Elpida's mouth. "Help, yeah, sure! Let's call it that! Inside, now!"

Elpida hurried back across Pheiri's outer deck, heading for the top hatch. Serin waited there, squeezing aside for Shilu and Hafina to pass. Elpida paused and looked into Serin's glowing red bionic eyes.

"Coh-mander … " she rasped — but Serin wasn't looking at Elpida. She was looking past her, over her shoulder, with a wince of pain in her eyes.

Elpida looked back at the metal horizon.

A ripple of visual distortion was flowing out across the landscape, racing to meet Pheiri. Scribbles of scrambled static flickered and smeared across the grey concrete and black mold, burning Elpida's eyes, as if her optic nerve was glitching out. Her head swam, her eyes stung, and Howl hissed with sympathetic pain. She scrubbed tears out of her eyes.

In the second it took Elpida to clear her vision, the visual distortions filled the landscape, blurring everything, rising like a rushing wave, rising up and over, cresting over Pheiri and the Necromancers in pursuit.

Worm-guard. Dozens or hundreds or thousands.

Elpida grabbed Serin by the arm and bundled her down inside Pheiri, hurrying after her, onto the metal steps of the narrow little stairwell. She turned and grabbed the edge of the top hatch, to slam it shut, to seal up Pheiri's innards against the rising tide.

A wall of static filled her field of vision, as if already crouched on Pheiri's hull.

Her eyes burned like fire in her face, watering hot, stabbing into her head and blurring her thoughts. Howl roared with pain and frustration. Her extremities were going numb. Her vision was turning to white snow and black static. Kagami was shouting in her ear, somebody was calling 'Commander!' behind her, somebody else was grabbing her shoulders, trying to haul her back — but she had to shut the hatch. She had to protect Pheiri.

Elpida got her left hand around the hatch handle. She pulled.

A cluster of tendrils flickered out from within the cloud of scratchy static and wormed past the open hatch.

The worm-guard grabbed Elpida around the waist, grip hard as steel cables, wrapping her tight.

And then it tore her free, tore her from Pheiri's innards, and hauled her aloft.

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