Leanne tried to tug on her EVA suit as she hurried towards Airlock-C. Her fingers fumbled with catches and fasteners in her attempt to do it one-handed. She had her helmet tucked beneath her arm and she kept nearly dropping it to the hard floor. If she did that, it could compromise it, and she would not be able to go outside and rescue Ryan. She imagined the woman out there, floating like Cliff, waiting for her death by suffocation. Leanne did not even know how she would reach her; she had no vessel to ferry her across to the Mandala or the Fighting Machine. But she had to try.

She could not lose someone else.

But, as she staggered to the airlock hatch, about to slam her hand on the button and enter, she saw the pressurisation cycle had already begun. Valkyrie, she thought. Perhaps the AI had started it ahead of time, to save Leanne precious seconds?

Leanne tugged on her helmet, considering her hasty plan as she did. She would have to go out without a safety net and hope she could reach Ryan in time. God, this was mad. She would never survive it.

Then she noticed movement beyond the portal door. She swore she saw a dash of red, the same colour as Ryan's suit. Leanne hesitated, her palm hovering above the button.

Within seconds, the hatch opened.

Ryan staggered out, her hand pressed to her side. She half-fell against a bulkhead and Leanne, pushing through her shock, rushed to her. She caught Ryan about the arm, heart thundering.

"What the hell..." Leanne managed. "How the hell are you still standing? You were flatlining on every variable!"

"I'm fine," Ryan gritted out.

"You aren't fine! How did you pilot the Fighting Machine? How did you—"

"I'm back, that's all. Come on, I need to speak with Valkyrie. She can help me."

"You need to get to the medbay right now! Let me see your wound."

Ryan just stared at Leanne for a moment. Her palm was still tight to her side where the debris had struck her. Leanne wondered what on earth was wrong with her, amongst many other questions. Then, the woman slowly lifted her hand.

Leanne gasped. Ryan seemed to be wearing something beneath her suit, something mechanical that had taken the brunt of the impact. It had been ruptured and wires and circuit boards were revealed.

"What is this?" Leanne asked. "Some kind of Martian protection?"

"No. Well, sort of."

Curiosity got the better of Leanne and she bent closer, relieved that Ryan had not been direly hurt. But why had her vital signs been flatlining? Perhaps a sensor error, perhaps a...

"Oh my god!" Realisation hit Leanne as hard as the debris that had nearly wiped out Ryan. She jerked away. "You're... You're a robot!"

"No," Ryan said, strained. "No, robots don't resemble humans. I'm an android. Or... transhuman, if you want to use the Martian term."

"Oh my god," Leanne repeated. "There are BASE laws against you!"

"I'm from Nerio, not the BASE. But yeah... So I would rather keep it quiet."

Leanne had so many questions. But she had to press them down now. Ryan was injured, in her own way. She made a step forward and again took Ryan's arm. It felt different now she knew what existed below it: wires and connections and synthetics. She would never have been able to tell.

She helped Ryan down the corridors, not towards the medbay but back to the cockpit. There, Ryan searched through a toolbox she had brought up from Nerio and perched on the edge of one of the consoles. Leanne could not tear her eyes away. Stripping from her EVA suit, helmet and then her jumpsuit, Ryan looked like any human woman, and a strikingly pretty one. Her dusky skin covered what had been designed as strong muscles, or whatever the android equivalent was. White-highlighted tattoos decorated her arms and legs, symbols of stars and planets and galaxies. Standing there in her vest and shorts, she was a testament to Martian technology which, Leanne admitted, was incredible.

Without ceremony, Ryan lifted her vest and revealed the hole in her side. Not even wincing, she reached inside and felt around. Leanne cringed, subconsciously rubbing at her stomach. A large chunk of detritus came out in Ryan's hand.

"There's the bastard," she said. "Valkyrie, where did I put that scanner?"

"It is by the forward shield, Ryan," Valkyrie replied.

"Leanne, do you mind?"

Leanne walked over and found the probe scanner Ryan had used on Phaethon. As she handed it over to Ryan, she wondered if this had been why Ryan had been so successful at dismantling Phaethon and speaking with Valkyrie. They shared something: artificial make-ups and intelligences.

"Valkyrie knows, then?" Leanne asked.

"Yeah. We understand each other in a way."

Ryan ran the scanner over her side, glancing at the image it brought up on a nearby console. Leanne could not help looking also. She stared at Ryan's insides, just as she had stared at Phaethon's.

"You said," Leanne managed, "that you only had your father. How is that... How is that possible? You weren't born from humans, were you?"

"No, not humans. My father is Imperium. Which made Phaethon my cousin, in a way, or maybe my brother. We both came from Imperium. Every family has their black sheep."

She smiled, but Leanne could not yet joke about this bizarre situation. "When were you going to tell me that you... aren't human?"

"When it became relevant. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to mislead you. But, as you said, I'm not officially legal. My existence goes against everything the BASE mandates."

"What would happen if the BASE discovered what you were?"

Ryan shrugged. "I hadn't thought of it. Perhaps they would de-activate me. But that wouldn't be a very good thanks to the one who helped solve the Chimera mystery."

"Is that why they sent you up here? For protection?"

"And because it's dangerous, I suppose. Nerio inhabitants are important, every single one. We can't afford to lose any to keep the balance."

"You're expendable?"

"I'm dependable. I told you, I'm more capable."

Ryan smiled again. She had pressed the probe deeper, searching for any more anomalies, but by the look of things, had not found them. She laid aside the scanner and reached again for her toolbox, finding a wrench and a spare bit of circuitry. It wouldn't look pretty, not as smooth and perfect as the rest of Ryan's skin, but Leanne supposed she knew the truth now. Ryan did not have to hide from her.

"How about you?" Ryan asked as she patched her side up. "Surely you don't think of yourself as expendable to the BASE."

"I don't know," Leanne admitted. "I'm nobody in the BASE, just one of hundreds of legal investigators and liaisons. I can't help feeling that..." She took a breath, wondering if she should say it. But Ryan had revealed something about herself, something that very few others knew. "I can't help feeling that they sent me and Cliff here, thinking that, if we were to fail, it wouldn't matter. We'd be no great loss to anybody."

"Cliff didn't have family?"

"He did. But the BASE, I don't know, sometimes I feel they don't care about that. They rather that we stick amongst our own kind and hook up with fellow astronauts, people who understand us and the trials we go through. Joanne was from outside the BASE."

"And you?"

Leanne shrugged. "I don't have anyone. I blamed my ex, Charlie, for our break-up but, I don't know, it was probably my fault. I find it hard to make friends with anyone else in the BASE and I don't often speak with my parents anymore. They're BASE through-and-through and that means we barely see each other."

"I bet they're following your progress now." Ryan had closed the hole in her side, riveting the edges of the panel down. "This is the biggest mystery that has hit the BASE for decades. Do you really think they'd send someone they didn't trust or value?"

"I don't know anymore."

Leanne realised there wasn't much she knew for certain. Every foundation had shifted underneath her feet. The Chimera, or Arcadia. Valkyrie and her moods. The BASE. And now, Ryan, an android. After everything, that did not seem so strange.

"Well, you're here now, and you're alive. We both are," Ryan added. "And now you know...what I am, it makes things easier."

"How?"

"I said I was going to access Valkyrie, didn't I? Now you can see exactly how."

Though she had just been battered around by debris and had had to operate on herself, Ryan did not seem deterred by the trials ahead. She buttoned her jumpsuit again, returned to her seat and Leanne, curious, came to stand closer. Like she had when speaking with Wells and Nerio, she placed her hands on the back of Ryan's chair for support. She tensed when Ryan started opening up panels and consoles, effortlessly levering them apart.

"What are you doing?" Leanne asked. "You're not going to...get in there, are you?"

"Sort of. I've just got to find the right thing. This ship is beyond anything I've ever seen before, even on Mars, but every AI should have a master cable, a master connection, that unites each compartment of a vessel or station. Imperium has dozens and dozens, all across Nerio. Ah, just like I thought."

Ryan straightened. She carried a wire in her hands, deep red. Leanne had the horrible impression that it was like holding the switch to defuse a bomb.

"Are you going to disconnect her?" Leanne asked.

"No. She'll have massive banks somewhere, perhaps run on different power to the rest of the vessel."

That would explain why Valkyrie had been online when the rest of the Arcadia hadn't been.

"I'm going to access her," Ryan said. "Go into her mind. See if I can find out what's going on in this ship and where everyone has gone."

The idea of that sent chills down Leanne's spine. She had only interacted with Valkyrie from the outside, but the AI had been impossible to predict and understand. Leanne could not imagine what her internal structure would be: a dark labyrinth, perhaps, full of traps and deceptions.

"Is that safe?"

"I have done it with Imperium before. It takes some navigation and orientation, but it's not dangerous. Not usually. Aside from the fact I might get stuck in there if Valkyrie decides it."

"What?"

"She won't do that. Will you, Valkyrie?"

"Of course not, Ryan."

It was the first thing Leanne had heard from her for a while. She was not so sure about the truth of that assurance.

"I'm more worried about you," Ryan said. "You'll be alone here for a while because me and Valkyrie will have to work together."

"I have been here alone before."

"Not without Valkyrie." Ryan had been manipulating the wire but now she turned and fixed Leanne with an honest gaze. "I will not go if you do not want me to. There might be other ways to get inside the centrifuge and to work out what's going on."

Leanne did not even have to think of it. "No," she said firmly. "You go. I will be fine."

Ryan hesitated for a second more. Then, determination flooding her eyes, she nodded. With no more words, she grasped the connection and opened a panel in her forearm where a trail of inky stars left their mark. Leanne watched intently as she again poked around her synthetic insides and found a stable point to attach to. She inserted what she had called Valkyrie's master cable and the effect was instant. Her body stiffened, her head shot backwards. Leanne reached for her as she jerked but immediately drew away at the painful electric shock. Ryan's eyes rolled and in place of her green irises, the blue glow of the Arcadia throbbed through them.

"Ryan?" Leanne asked feebly, but the woman was silent. Gradually, the tension drained from her limbs and her face slackened. For the first time, Valkyrie's low hum drifted away. Leanne imagined them united, in some different world, some place she could not follow.

Praying this was normal (or whatever 'normal' was in this situation), Leanne sank into the seat beside Ryan. She wanted to take her hand, as if she were a patient in a coma, but a fizzing energy emitted from her. Leanne watched, fascinated. Was this truly what the Martians were capable of?

And was it, she suddenly thought, such a leap to suppose that this ship, full of unknown tech and mysteries, was a Martian creation? The BASE could not make something like this, as much as they would like to think so. It would explain some things, but not all. Why did Valkyrie still insist the Arcadia was registered to the BASE? Where were the crew and what was this ship's purpose? And what the hell powered this thing, beyond Valkyrie?

Leanne had been in this mess for three days, she reckoned. She had barely had time to collect her thoughts and capture her experiences, even if just for posterity's sake. So, as Ryan drifted in her synthetic world, Leanne found her data pad and recorded some audio logs, speaking into the abject silence of the cockpit. Returning to the events which had occurred made every emotion crest over her again. She fought to keep her account impersonal and unfeeling, just as the BASE would want.

But, at the end of her professional tether, she then recorded an extra message for Joanne Buchanan and her children, telling her of Cliff's burial amongst the stars. If Leanne was not to survive, then at least she would hear her voice. She hoped she would find it a comfort.

Time stretched on. As Leanne waited, her duties done, she wandered about the cockpit, curiously looking at every console and deck. They were all black now, Valkyrie's care focused entirely on her and Ryan's connection. But as she walked about, Leanne felt her foot catch on something, discarded on the floor. The compartment always seemed so sterile and clean, so she wondered what on earth could have come loose. Frowning, she bent and noticed a glimmer of light. The reflection of something metal.

As Leanne picked it up, turning it in her fingers, her heart leapt. It must have fallen when Ryan had pulled off her jumpsuit and stitched herself up.

Cliff's little shooting star ornament. It had been on the Mandala, hanging by the forward shield. Ryan must have picked it up when she entered the shuttle, before sending it to its fiery demise.

"You sentimental robot," Leanne whispered affectionately.

No sooner had she said it did Ryan give a sudden gasp. Leanne shot to her feet. The woman had startled back to life, clinging to the arms of her seat.

"Ryan!" Leanne exclaimed, rushing over. "Are you alright?"

Ryan looked around, obviously orientating herself again. Gradually, the blue glow left her eyes. The electric charge died about her. Valkyrie's soft hum returned.

"The crew," Ryan managed. "They're still on the ship."

Word count: 2557
Overall: 21,838

The shoutout for this chapter goes to JanGoesWriting and Entity. This is a similar premise to mine (unknown seemingly derelict spaceship which has to be investigated) but much more of a sci fi horror Alien take on it! It's recently completed so binge the creepiness to your heart's content!