In the moments before impact, the Maya burned everything she had. Fuel, air, excess hull, even the pilot’s body--all cooked off in a spasm that saved both their lives. Split down the middle and hemorrhaging mass, she contracted into a knife, a needle, a sliver. When she plunged into the frozen surface, she massed only forty kilograms. She boiled down through the frozen ammonia until, cooling, she lodged in place. High above, she felt the rest of herself tumble away, squawking distress calls. The mines converged, drowning the signal in a star of light.

At first she held perfectly still, listening. The killers bantered with one another. Their voices dimmed as they sped out of system, and once they’d merged into the ambient static, she turned her attention to her pilot. Although there was little left of him--a brain, some spine, a lacing of nerves--the Maya still loved him as a mother ship should, with every fiber of her being.

Her main concern was how few of those fibers remained.


...

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