The rotum smelt of smoke. Gilbert half-fell out of Shrike's hatch and raced down the stairs to where the wall had opened to a small medical wing. Ludwig carried Roderich into it and laid him down on a white bed that started rapidly staining with the blood blisters bursting through Roderich's overalls. They were thick on his hands and face, the only skin visible.

"Stay back," Arthur snapped, grabbing Gilbert's overall as he ran past. Repair bots were disappearing through Shrike's hatch, which was leaking smoke and the sickly smell of Aureus fluid. "Let the others get the gel on him!"

Gilbert didn't waste his breath but turned around in one smooth motion and punched Arthur in the face.

Or tried to. His fist smacked into Alfred's hand. "Leave him alone," Alfred said levelly. His hair was clinging to the back of his neck from sweat, he had a headache and his ears were ringing from the damage Eagle had taken going to the rescue in that dogfight. He was not in the mood for people fucking with Arthur.

"It should have worked!" Gilbert howled, rounding on Arthur. "You gave us the wrong plan, you stupid bastard! This is your fault!"

"No," Arthur said. His skin was an unhealthy shade of paper-white and his hands shook, but his glare wasn't any less intense. He smelt of smoke. "I said it was the plan with the best chance of success and getting both you and Edelstein out alive. I never said it wasn't risky." Behind him, Antonio and Ludwig were dealing with Roderich, packs of regen-gel in their hands.

"You said it was 60% sure to succeed!" Gilbert shouted. He was so upset he couldn't seem to remember how his hands hung, and shoved them in his pockets and tore them out. "That means it should have worked!"

"No, it means four out of ten times it won't work," Arthur snapped. "You just ignore statistics that you don't like! We'll have to run it again—"

"To hell with your stupid tactics!" Gilbert said. "I'll take them all down and plant the damn tracker on the last survivor!" He went to push past Arthur to get back to the walkway, but Ludwig loomed up behind him, stepping away from the interface, and took his arm in a grip.

"You're not going anywhere," Ludwig said. "You're a liability at the moment."

"Those insect bastards half killed him," Gilbert said, somewhere between a human voice and an animal snarl. Alfred glanced at Roderich's unconscious body. Nobody had to ask who him was when Gilbert said it like that.

"That's exactly why you're not going," Ludwig said. "You'll endanger your life and your Aureus."

Gilbert's voice went soft and dangerous. "Get out of my fucking way."

Ludwig stared at him. "No."

Alfred stepped forward to intervene. But before he could reach them, there was a swift movement and the thunk of knuckles on bone.

Gilbert crumpled to the floor. Arthur shook out his hand, grimacing in pain.

"Kirkland!" Ludwig said. "Striking from behind is dishonourable!"

"You two were about to fight anyway," Arthur said. "And he's as good as you. I fight to win. Fast."

"Insubordination!" Ludwig said. "When Edelstein wakes up, we'll need Beilschmidt—"

"When Edelstein wakes up I still won't want Gilbert Beilschmidt anywhere near my plans," Arthur said. "You know how he gets when Edelstein gets hurt. I'll take—"

"Me," Alfred said, stepping up and putting a hand on Arthur's shoulder. "If you're running this crazy thing, you're taking me."

"Not you," Arthur snapped. "Tracer will do."

"Why not me?" Alfred said. "Eagle's got twice Tracer's range."

"Because!" Arthur said, refusing to look at him.

A flicker of intuition sprung up at the back of Alfred's mind, incredulous. "Because you don't want me hurt if it goes wrong."

"This has nothing to do with that!"

"Hey, I'm hard to kill," Alfred said, giving his shoulder an affectionate shove. "Show me how we're going to do it."

()()()

Alfred insisted on midday rations first, and then let Arthur drag him to the simulators and bring up the programme he'd been working on in virtual reality. The simulators only used a light version of the Aurea fluids, which went in through one microneedle pad in the shoulder. Alfred connected himself up.

The pattern wasn't difficult in theory. Arthur made Lancaster an easy target for the faster Cree, and Eagle used its higher manoeuvrability to brush past one focused on Lancaster and plant this "tracker", which was a type of spybot Alfred had never seen before. The problem was making sure Lancaster survived that encounter. Roderich nearly hadn't.

They went through it in every conceivable combination of Cree ships except the big battle cruisers. "If they have those," Arthur said, "we call off. That's an emergency for Leviathan. We can't run risky manoeuvres in a heavy firefight."

"I thought this was risky anyway."

"It's forty percent risky," Arthur said irritably. "Run the pattern again."

The single microneedle pad in his shoulder wasn't draining Alfred as fast as a real Aureus would. He wasn't even aware of how much tiredness was fogging his reactions until he went to turn his simulated Aureus, facing down a Cree heading lazily for both of them. Easy target. But his mind wandered, and instead of engaging a long-range missile, a short-range materialised and exploded harmlessly in the visuals in front of him. He tried to frantically engage another one.

"Alfred, above you!" Arthur shouted.

There was a screeching whine. Alfred hammered at the button and the screen exploded around him, and then winked out.

Alfred pulled off the simulator helmet and yanked out the microneedle pad. Arthur stared at him from the other chair, his hair mussed from the helmet, his hand still on the cut-out button.

"Fuck," Alfred said, with feeling.

"Don't let that happen, you stupid git," Arthur said.

"I didn't mean to!" Alfred said, a sick, hollow feeling inside him. He'd kept the fear at bay until now, but now it hit him like a wave. He knew he'd be fine, but what if someone shot Arthur? What if Alfred couldn't stop them?

"Stop it," Arthur said sharply. "I know what you're thinking." He got up, dumping the helmet back in its slot, and pressed his hand on Alfred's shoulder as he passed. "Stop bloody worrying about me. Get some rest. We're on standby until the real ones attack."

()()()

The medic bots worked fast. Roderich was at evening rations, in obvious discomfort at having to sit up and move his arms, and having trouble concentrating on his food. Gilbert didn't say a word, but sat beside him and glowered at everything.

"I would kill for something different," Arthur muttered, unwrapping his ration cube.

"Pizza," Alfred said wistfully.

Feliciano looked up from his ration cube. "Pizza?" he said. "What's that?"

Alfred looked at him blankly. "You don't know?"

"Eh?" Feliciano said. He looked at Ludwig.

"It's a hovercraft model," Ludwig said firmly. Before Alfred could even start to deal with this, Ludwig was already frowning at Arthur. "Stop thinking and eat."

Arthur was shredding his ration cube into smaller and smaller pieces. He stopped when Ludwig spoke, but he didn't start eating. "I bloody wish we hadn't failed today," he said. "You know the last time we had a lull this long?"

Ludwig's eyes narrowed. "When?"

"Before the big wave last year," Arthur said. "I don't like it. What if there are only a few around because all the rest are being refitted?"

"Or what if we've finally whittled them down?" Antonio countered. "We'll get briefed if there's anything to really worry about."

"Not if the information's not there," Arthur said. "Damn it. I want that spybot on yesterday."

Gilbert bristled, and Antonio said warningly, "Arthur."

"Tomorrow will do," Arthur muttered. "But it had better be tomorrow."

()()()

They had to wait thirty-eight hours before there was a Cree sighting. At the alarm, Alfred tumbled out of bed and dashed into the rotum just behind Arthur. But something wasn't right.

He and Arthur should be doing this solo, with Antonio and Romano standing by in the rotum as reinforcements. But on the walkway, the Aurea hatch at the end was already slamming shut.

Alfred frowned at it, trying to remember which one that was. He still hadn't got it when something hard knocked him aside, nearly winding him.

Ludwig shoved past him like an attack missile. "GILBERT BEILSCHMIDT!" he shouted. "GET BACK HERE RIGHT NOW!"

"It's too late," Arthur said, taking the stairs to the walkway two at a time. "He'll be linked up by now. Bloody hell," he added, through gritted teeth.

Alfred took a look at his face as he swung himself through his own hatch. "Aw, shit," he said. "That bad?"

"With a rogue Aurea in the field our probability of success has just sunk to 45.7%," Arthur said. "But we can't postpone this any longer. It's been too long already. Let's go." He pushed away and climbed through Lancaster's hatch.

Eagle's senses filled Alfred's brain as they roared up the launch tunnel and shot out only five miles or so from a dogfight. A group of small, fast Cree ships had managed to penetrate a long way into the defences, but now they had met Shrike. Gilbert's face, twisted with rage, appeared in front of Alfred as he emerged into the open air.

"Eagle to Shrike," Alfred said urgently. "Gilbert, stay out of our way."

"I'll take them all down myself!" Gilbert snarled, whirling on another Cree.

"Of course you will," Arthur said. "Carry on – the earlier you get shot down the easier it'll be."

"Hey, teamwork, Kirkland," Alfred said.

"I save it for when people are doing as I say," Arthur snapped. "Manoeuvre J-5! Positions!"

"Ten-four." Alfred banked steeply, bringing Albatross around into a gaggle of Cree and scattering them. Behind him, Arthur dived and zoomed up to gain speed.

Once Alfred was in position, he had to fight Eagle's natural instinct to gain altitude and take shots from above. It took him several minutes work his way around to one of the slower Cree in the group as he dodged and wove and pulled Eagle out of missile paths. But he reached it, hovering in the blue sky for one perfect moment, with Lancaster in exact range.

"Now," Arthur's image said.

"Evade," Alfred said, and pushed Eagle into a dive.

Arthur whipped Lancaster over the top of the Cree ship, making it turn to follow him in that sideways roll that the Cree ships were so bad at. Another, faster ship came to their rescue, and Alfred cut across its path. Fifty metres. Twenty. He had the tracker lined up in the missile slots, and in a puff of smoke it was away. The Cree fired back, but Alfred had already thrown Eagle into a barrel roll.

There was a moment of smoke-filled confusion, and a split second later Alfred and Arthur were clean away, a grin splitting Alfred's face.

"Hey, Kirkland, we rock," he said. "Now let's clean this lot u-"

Arthur wasn't looking at him. His eyes were unfocused. Alfred saw too late what he was paying attention to: Gilbert flying dangerously low, and the deltoid shape of a Cree rush-fighter above him, lining up for a shot.

"Shrike!" Arthur shouted. "Gilbert, you bloody fool!" He dived down after him.

Something prickled on Alfred's back. He didn't know if it was his reaction or Eagle's, but it made him look up. Straight up.

There was the black, insect-like point of a stealth craft breaking the cloud above them. A double trap, Alfred saw, in one blinding moment: the rush-fighter was there as bait so the stealth craft could strike from above. It had broken the clouds now. Arthur could see the missiles nestling under its wing. Pointing straight at Arthur.

"Arthur!" Alfred kicked Eagle forwards. He could feel another Aureus coming out of the launch tunnel, but it wouldn't get here soon enough. Shrike was no use. The world seemed to slow as Alfred saw the stealth craft missiles fire out of their holders, and realised that he was so close he could slip into their path.

He flung out Eagle's wings and dropped. As he did, Antonio and Romano's Aurea burst from the launch tunnel and fired everything anti-missile gun they had. Alfred saw three of the four warheads dropping, and wondered if he was, by some miracle, going to get away with this.

And then the world went white.

()()()

Alfred didn't remember much after that. The dome of the rotum throbbed above him, sharp and then dull in his vision, while his body jolted across underneath it. There were voices around him, stretched tight with worry and anger. Someone let out a hoarse yell at every bad jolt and he wished they'd shut up. It was only when he was trying to listen to the voices he realised it was him.

That was Ludwig saying, "It failed?" and Arthur, furious, saying, "No. It worked fine. Heroics." Even in the blur around him, Arthur's voice was like splintering glass, pain and anger and the sickening crack of a load-platform crumbling. Limit exceeded. Emergency measures required. Alfred tried to reach out to him, but his hands didn't work.

"This is worse than Roderich," he heard Antonio say. Well, shit, Alfred thought, but he couldn't manage anything more coherent than that.

He remembered a kiss brushed on his forehead, later, on one of the only patches of skin that didn't hurt. He lay in the medical bay under the bright, white lights. The brightness and the pain seemed to open the space in his head. In the midst of the agony Alfred still waited eagerly for the memories, but all it disgorged was numbers. Twenty eighteen eighteen three zero four eighteen eighteen twenty three zero four... Numbers. They danced around his vision, mockingly surreal, until the pain overcame him.

He woke up again – he thought it was a long time later – because there were low, frightened voices near him.

"You can't be serious," Ludwig's voice said, muffled, from the rotum. Alfred must have ended up in the medical bay.

"It's been sending data back for hours," Arthur said flatly. "I'm one hundred percent sure. They're massing in numbers we've never seen before." He wasn't even swearing. It sounded like he had gone beyond swearing.

"Where did they come from?"

"Who knows where Cree come from? Maybe they bred them. It doesn't matter, Ludwig. Against a thousand ships, there's – there's nothing we can do."

"We can hold out," he heard Ludwig say bleakly. "Either the other outposts have been overwhelmed or we'll be reinforced."

"We'll be reinforced when hell freezes over," Arthur snarled. "They're all dead or retreated."

"Kirkland!"

"Then tell me why I've had no answer to any of my emergency calls!"

"You shouldn't have sent those! We're forbidden contact with—"

"With what? The deserted outposts and empty domes out ther- ah!" Arthur broke off with a cry of pain that Alfred recognised as the mind wipe kicking in.

Alfred tried to move, but the smallest effort set off bursts of pain flowering behind his closed eyes. He had to cling onto the voices to stay conscious.

"See if we can get it the dispenser to give more regen-gel packs for Roderich and Alfred," Ludwig said brusquely, and someone's footsteps went off to do it. "We'll need everyone."

"At least you got the tracker on," Antonio said, his voice small.

"Yes," Arthur said savagely. "We can die in full knowledge of what's to come."

I have to do something, Alfred thought, but he was falling away again.

()()()

Alfred nearly surfaced few more times, but something was stopping him. The useless numbers were flying around and clinging to him, tangling his mind like cobwebs, sticking his eyelids shut.

He managed to force them open a crack, although his vision was still blurred and he couldn't piece a thought together. When he did, he knew why he'd woken as far as he had: Arthur was sitting by his bed, shoulders slumped and elbows on his knees. Somewhere in the distance, there were alarms. Alfred tried to say something but his lips only twitched to shape soundless numbers. Eleven three-oh-four. Twenty.

"You said you wouldn't leave," Arthur whispered. His head was bowed, his voice ragged and exhausted. "You promised me, Alfred."

So much for heroics. The thought lanced white-hot through the fog of numbers. It hurt. Every part of the realisation hurt. Alfred thought he'd just done everything a hero should do. But it wasn't enough.

It's not about me, he thought. I'm a fool. I thought it was all about me being a – being a stupid great hero. I've done everything wrong.

He felt like his mind was cracking under the weight of his failure. He would give up being a hero forever if he could find anything that would help Arthur. But all he had was a body that couldn't move and thoughts drowned in useless numbers—

And then something clicked.

Alfred realised everything.