Kate slept better than she'd thought she would, with 55 purring quietly for her the whole time.
She'd have probably slept longer, but her protesting stomach woke her up. Those few shreds of bland chicken were a distant memory and she felt ravenous.
Thus, she'd only been awake for forty seven minutes but Kate was already finishing her third plate of sandwiches, not to mention crunching her way through Spacehawk's entire stock of crispy snacks. 101 looked alarmed by how quickly his inventory was dropping but wasn't hesitating at bringing more when she looked at him in a specific way.
"Growing a whole new skeleton really takes it out of you," she said, accepting the offering when the zeroid trundled over the obs lounge floor, pushing yet another packet of crisps towards her.
"That's our last pack of those," 101 informed her, trying but not quite able to keep all the reproach from his tone. "So if you want anything else you'll need to pick something different. Like broccoli."
"Sorry, hon." She suspected it had probably been Hiro's favourites she'd been happily munching her way through, if the zeroid's manner was anything to go by. "I'll send some more up on your next supply run."
He chirped an acknowledgement and seemed mollified, for the moment.
"I guess it must have felt a bit like this when you got your body back after Zelda turned you into a cube, huh?" she wondered.
"Oh I don't think my experience was anywhere near as bad as yours, ma'am," he demurred. "Mine was more like… maybe just a very unflattering new set of clothes."
"I don't think you're giving yourself enough credit for surviving a horrible situation," she said. "For at least two weeks afterwards, you were still hissing every time you got annoyed, if I remember right."
There was a subtle brightening of his optic display and he just said hmm! which she imagined probably meant he was still embarrassed and didn't want to talk about it, so she patted him on the head and left it alone. "And I bet it still sucked."
"Well, it didn't involve a trash compactor, so it could have been worse." He gave her fingers a bump. "Would you like a coffee? I just heard it finish brewing."
"That would be amazing. Thank you."
He squeaked another little nonverbal agreement, and rolled away to get it. (Pulling the new bag of snacks open, she wondered if she could get away with asking for more sandwiches when he came back.)
"Tea? Yes please, dear," she heard Hiro say, and looked up to find the lieutenant in the doorway, holding a tablet.
"I ate all your chips, so I think I'm in trouble with your husband," Kate apologised, holding the open pack out to him. Even that small action made her shoulders ache. Perhaps she ought to forego more sandwiches in favour of sleeping for a few days.
Hiro smiled and took a single crisp, but otherwise waved her off. "He is still bringing you snacks, so you can't be in too much trouble." He settled on the floor next to her, cross legged. He looked tired; she didn't imagine he'd slept much since this had all started. "If you had upset him, he would have started bringing you things you probably would not enjoy very much."
"Yeah, he threatened me with something healthy already."
Hiro chuckled. "Well, please keep this between us, but I am glad someone else is eating our inventory. I once told Owun I particularly liked these, so now he always buys far too many, then pretends they were on offer. Then we have to somehow store four cases of them." He looked at the bag Kate was holding out, and sat on his hands. "I try not to eat them too quickly, because then he panics that we are running out and buys more." A little sigh. "There are certain nuances to human behaviour that zeroids don't quite understand, yet, and striking a balance between unhealthy foods we enjoy and sensible nutritional choices appears to be one of them."
"Well, you have plenty of 'sensible nutritional choices' in the form of broccoli."
"And why do you think we have plenty of that?" Hiro gave her an arch look, then finally relented and took another crisp.
"Yeah, I get it." Kate chuckled.
They sat quietly together for a little while, with 55 unobtrusively monitoring Kate's vital signs from where he perched nearby, connected to Spacehawk's systems. (The zeroid had become something of an anxious sheepdog and was following her everywhere, now. Just in case, apparently.) 101 finally returned with their drinks, on a small trolley.
Kate took her coffee, but eyed Hiro's green tea with a vague envy. "I probably shoulda asked you for one of those instead, 101. Not sure caffeine was the best idea for my poor nerves, after all."
101 was already halfway to the door. "I can get-"
"No, no. This looks good too. Thank you." It did look good; hazelnut syrup and plenty of hot milk, with a thick steamed foam on top. She took a sip, savouring it, before finally prompting; "So, do you have an update for me, Hiro?"
"I do. Not much of one, yet, but we wanted to ensure you were kept in the loop." Hiro held out the tablet for her, but maintained his hold on it for a few extra seconds. "Before we start… I am sorry that there is no easy way to tell you what we have found, but I will promise you now that we will do everything in our power to fix it. All right?"
Kate took a steadying breath before accepting the device. "I'm already not liking the direction this sounds like it's going in Hiro, but all right. I trust you." She stared down at the confusing mosaic of graphs and microscopy and… biopsy images? "What am I looking at?"
Hiro tapped the first image and it enlarged to a graphical representation of genetic data. "Initially, when you arrived and we took samples?" At her nod, he went on; "We thought that Zelda must have done something structurally to alter your DNA, but when we analysed it, it was all still human. We could not explain it. How could you be human, but categorically not human, at the same time?" He touched the screen again and scrolled through a selection of biopsy results, most of which she wasn't sure of the meaning of. "Eventually, we did a visual scan of your blood sample. And we found… this." He tapped the tablet and brought up a new image.
It was some sort of microscopy of a blood film. Kate could recognise red blood cells easily. The irregular, blobby masses were probably white blood cells.
She had no idea what the scattering of angular black flecks were, though.
She sucked in a sharp breath and for a second didn't feel capable of releasing it. "The hell are those."
"We are still working on our analysis, but they look like very small machines of some sort. They have proved extremely hard to extract to get under the electron microscope. Doctor Ninestein and Kiljoy are still working on it."
"They're in my blood?" She suddenly wished she hadn't eaten quite so many sandwiches, and hastily put her coffeecup down before she could spill it in her lap. Bile rose in her throat.
"Yes. I'm sorry." Hiro caught her hand and she clung to him with both her own.
"They're in my blood, Hiro." She knew it was her imagination, but everything suddenly felt very heavy – like her blood had been replaced by sludge. Maybe her muscles didn't ache because of the transformation, but because a hundred thousand tiny sharp black flecks were scouring their way along the inside of her blood vessels, like a malicious alien virus. "Shit. Shit."
Hiro kept hold of her shaking hands, and waited quietly. The two zeroids had both converged on her as well, leaning comfortingly against her.
"I don't know what I even expected you to say." Kate laughed in spite of herself, shakily, and wiped her face with one hand. "That Zelda had zapped me with some… magical raygun, and the effect had worn off, and that was it? It's all over? Of course it wouldn't be that easy, would it."
That bubble of laughter threatened to become hysterical. Keep it together, Kate. She focused on the grounding weight of 55, pressed up against her, and counted each slow scroll of 101's optic display.
At the count of fifteen, she felt like she might be able to trust her voice again. "When can you remove them?"
Hiro's silence was all she needed to know.
"We will remove them," he hastily added. "I just… am not sure how quickly we can do it, yet."
"Can you block them? Keep them from reactivating?"
"I don't know. We don't know how they work. We do not even know for sure if they are switched on right now."
"So what you mean is, I could turn back into a bird at literally any moment. Including at the worst possible time. Like… at the controls of an aircraft. Or on stage. Or… on the goddamn toilet-" She swallowed the rest of the words before they could dig in any deeper. "How did Zelda even get them-…" A new, nauseating thought hit her. "It was the parcel, wasn't it. Shit. I left it at the concert hall. I didn't think to check if Joe actually got rid of it safely-"
"I'm sorry?"
"Someone sent me a 'gift'. They dressed someone up to look like Stew, so it'd look like it was all legit and came from head office, and nothing harmful showed up on the security scan. Just… pottery and minerals." She closed her eyes. "It was a broken statue of a bird wearing a wig. There was black sand in it, and it left a stain on my fingertips that took a while to wash off. I thought it was just a stupid joke from a fan who couldn't craft very well." That sensation of sickness rose in her throat again. If only she'd been as careful putting it back in the box as she had been taking it out, and none of this would be happening. "But it didn't wash off, did it. It got into my blood, through my skin, by-by… creeping in through my pores-"
"Kate," Hiro interrupted, squeezing her fingers and helping pull her out of a threatening spiral. "I promise we will fix this. Zelda did it – which means we can un-do it. I'm so sorry I can do nothing for you yet, but I will. You have my absolute promise of that."
"…thank you." She let out a breath in a very long shaky exhale and leaned into him. "I'm sorry, guys." She tried for a smile but it came out more like a grimace of pain. "I know it's not your fault. Please don't feel like I'm blaming you for not magically knowing how to fix it already, Hiro. I just… oh, man. Just when I thought it couldn't get any worse." She covered her face with her free hand. "At least tell me they're not breeding."
Hiro considered it for a few moments. "We are fairly confident are not self-replicating. Granted, they have been exceptionally difficult to visualise in any detail, but Kiljoy has not observed any difference in the number present in the sample we took." He found a small smile in reply. "There is also one… silver lining? For some of us, at least. They do not appear to be escaping into the environment, either."
"So I'm not stuck up here in quarantine," Kate intuited, and found a more genuine little smile. "As silver linings go it's pretty small, but I'll take it. I don't think I took Earth so much for granted until I was told I might not be able to go back there. Living permanently in orbit? Really not my thing." She leaned forwards and patted 101's top curve, making him chirp. "No offence, you guys. You're both wonderful company. But I don't know how you do it, spending so much time up here. I need to feel the earth under my feet again. Real gravity. A breeze that doesn't come from the aircon."
"No offence taken, Kate, of course. And Treehawk will be ready for you whenever you want to depart," Hiro reassured. "We can research these… nanobots, for want of a better description… without needing to force you to remain here."
"Please – keep me updated with everything you find?"
"Of course! You will be first to know."
"I didn't think it could get much worse than the time she had Lord Tempo actually kill me, but this sure is in the running for the top spot, now." Kate picked her coffee back up, and sighed quietly into its cooling depths. "I guess compared to having a worm put in your head to force you to try and kill everyone you love, turning into a bird is getting away lightly."
Hiro offered a rueful smile. "Let's not compare our personal traumas. You have absolutely not been somehow treated more kindly than I was."
Kate slid an arm behind him and leaned into him, letting her head bump down on his shoulder. "I'm beginning to think this job is bad for our health."
He echoed her movements, leaning back towards her. "You're right – but somebody has to do it. And at least we all have each other for support, which is more than can be said for Zelda and her 'allies'."
Chirps of agreement came from the two zeroids.
Kate finally found a small laugh that didn't feel like it was a step or two away from a sob. "As families go, I don't think I coulda found a better one, huh? Thanks, guys."
Eventually Spacehawk's crew had to head away to attend to other duties, leaving just 55 and Kate together in the observations lounge. He gave her a little bump and shimmied carefully up under her arm.
"Are you all right, miss Kate? You still seem quite stressed. Your heart rate's normally lower at rest."
"You caught me out, Five-five." Kate sighed. "I guess I still feel like I have an anvil hanging over my head. We know how Zelda did it, but don't know what the actual trigger was? After I was… infected…" The words felt sour in her mouth. "…it took until the next day before the flecks did anything, and-… I don't really want it to happen again? But I know it will, because Zelda's not been in contact with us to gloat over it, so whatever nightmare she's planning hasn't come to fruition yet. And my blood will stay full of tiny black specks until she does, unless Hiro can figure it out first."
55 made a sad little descending note. "Is there anything that I can do? I feel pretty useless if I can't help you."
"Just… being company is good, buddy. I promise." Kate tightened her arm and pulled him in closer, and listened as his fans began that soothing purr again. "And I'm gonna need you while I'm on this enforced sabbatical, so you better have that inner thesaurus of yours all charged up and ready to go."
"Ha ha! Ten-ten, ma'am. You can rely on me – so long as it's not with the choreography!"
When the time finally came for them to depart, 101 met them at the airlock, with a packet of crisps. "I fibbed. There was still one pack left," he apologised, nudging it towards her. "For the journey down?"
Kate smiled. "You don't want to keep them for Hiro?"
The zeroid glanced around himself, guiltily. "He thinks we ran out already. I haven't fessed up to still having some, yet."
She crouched in front of him. "I know you just wanted to keep one pack for him, so I'm flattered that you changed your mind for me. Thank you. But it's fine, hon. I have eaten so many of your snacks already, I'm surprised I haven't turned into a chip." She thought about it for a second or so. "The way my day's going, I can't even say that feels all that implausible, either." She stroked his casing, and smiled, gratefully. "Give them to Hiro, with my thanks."
He leaned into her fingers, subtly. "Thank you, ma'am. Safe travels."
Ninestein gave Kate an uneasy glance, watching as she climbed into Treehawk's passenger seat and buckled her harness. "You absolutely sure you're all right?"
"Tired and sore and really goddamn crushed that I can't fly, right now." She looked back at him. "But if you mean 'are you fit to be flown', then sure. I'm fine. Can't guarantee I won't turn into a bird again on the way down, but I'm sure you've dealt with weirder. I promise to behave myself."
"We don't have to travel just yet if you don't feel like you're up to it-"
"Don't you even dare suggest it, Tiger." She waved a vaguely threatening finger. "I want to sit in the garden, feel the breeze on my face and grass under my toes, and work out what the hell I'm going to do about all those upcoming commitments that really won't be helped by a coat of feathers…"
oOoOoOo
Leaning heavily into the central control console on the flight deck, Hiro watched the view from the space zeroids of their small shuttle departing. He felt tireder than he wanted to admit – having first spent hours searching for their missing friend, and then switching straight into researching the malicious nanobot infestation, he hadn't managed to catch more than a few minutes sleep, and now his eyes had grown sore and a headache was starting to tighten a band around his temples.
101 appeared out of nowhere with a cup of tea, and a suspiciously familiar packet of snacks. "Hiro?"
"Oh!" Hiro smiled and held out a hand. "A little bird implied we had run out of these."
"Ye-eah so I might have been a teeny tiny bit less than generous with the truth and not completely totally one-hundred-percent honest about our inventory." Fairly dripping with guilt, the zeroid watched Hiro pick the offerings up off the trolley. "I already apologised to Captain Kestrel. She said to let you have them."
Hiro smiled and gave him a pet. "Thank you, both of you. I will save them for later, when I am not too tired to enjoy them."
101 watched him walk across to the window seat, where the bright curve of the Earth was visible. "What they did to Captain Kestrel – exactly how bad is it?"
Hiro patted the cushion by his side; without hesitation, 101 took the invitation and tucked up under his arm. "It is… not good," the human lieutenant confirmed, slowly, studying the spirals inscribed by the steam rising from his drink. "I hesitate even to say it is manageable, right now."
"What does that mean?"
"We do not have a big enough sample to study properly. We can barely see what they even are? And even if we managed to filter every last one out of Kate's blood sample, we still wouldn't have enough to experiment on." Hiro took a sip and savoured the warmth of his drink for a second or two. "At the moment, manually picking them out is the only solution we have come up with, and I am not sure how we would do it without removing her blood from her body, somehow. It would be like trying to take out individual blood cells."
"We might be able to do that," 101 offered. "Zeroids, I mean. We can be accurate enough to target individual flecks, at least."
Hiro laughed, tiredly. "I will find you some very small tweezers, then."
They sat quietly together for a while, with Hiro unwilling to doze off with such a huge job weighing on his conscience but definitely beginning to nod. While 101 was always happy and content to initiate snuggles, and rarely needed an excuse to do so, close contact also let him monitor his friend's biosigns, and right now he could feel Hiro beginning to lose the battle against sleep, pressing gradually harder against his casing as he began to doze.
101 didn't know precisely how tiredness affected how human brains worked, but he'd heard some of the gobbledygook Hiro's half-sleeping brain had convinced him was sensible in the past, and knew that the lieutenant wouldn't be processing things effectively if he tried to carry on like this.
It exasperated Ninestein, most of the time, but Hiro still encouraged all the zeroids to think for themselves, saying he valued the leaps of logic their processors sometimes made. Granted, a lot of their 'imagination' was either one absurd leap too far, or else not remotely imaginative. But practice (and a good teacher) had meant 101 was getting better at it, and something new was percolating: Hiro can't do anything until we get a bigger sample.
So, we need to try and get more for him. Kate said they were in a statue. There might be more in it. Hiro's too tired to make that connection for himself just yet, and time is of the essence. The longer we leave it, the more likely we won't find the thing, particularly if it's in the trash. I need to get someone on Earth to help.
After the third time Hiro jerked his head back up out of a doze, 101 finally lost patience with him.
"You need to go to bed, honey. You've been awake for at least twenty four hours. You can't possibly be at your best right now." He butted gently into his side.
"No, no." Hiro shoved his glasses up and scrubbed his eyes. "I need-"
"To go to bed, before you fall asleep on me, and that won't be fun for either of us. Go on, shoo. Let me look after the shop. I can handle monitoring and you know I can scream pretty loud if things get too tough for me."
Hiro looked down to meet the intense scarlet gaze staring him out, then sighed, beaten, and put both arms around him, gratefully. "Thank you." He pushed himself unsteadily back to his feet, bumping into the central console, then away down the short corridor to his cabin.
101 watched him go, then settled at his perch, and got himself comfortable. He waited until he was sure Hiro was asleep before opening a channel to Earth. "Zero? Are you there?"
The sergeant major took a few seconds to answer, so had either been busy, or more likely snoozing. "Well of course I am. Where else would I be?"
"One of these days you're gonna answer with something normal like 'yes'."
"One of these days, you is going to open with something normal like 'hello'," Zero countered, gruff. "What's the matter anyway, lad?"
"Captain Kestrel is on her way back," 101 explained, quietly. He didn't need to be, because his words were transmitting straight into Zero's audio centre, but he softened his tone anyway, as though trying not to wake anyone. "It's not good news, Zero. It's like she's got a virus of tiny robots in her blood."
"Tiny robots?"
101 ignored the incredulous tone. "Yes. Hiro told me what the problem is and we don't know how to get them out, yet. I've been thinking how we can help, and I need you to do a job for me."
That was possibly the wrong choice of words.
"Oh you needs me to do a job, is it." Zero scoffed his annoyance. "Why don't you do it yourself, you bossy little space-hopper."
"Well obviously I can't do anything from up here, can I, or I would do."
"You could jump over the side again. Just remember to pack a parachute, this time."
"Well-!" 101 sounded genuinely wounded by that one. "That was unkind! You know I didn't jump, and you know what falling did to-"
"All right, all right. Don't go and blow a fuse." Zero interrupted before his rival could get himself too worked up. "Fine." He huffed meaninglessly to himself for a second or two. "That was probably just the wrong side of acceptable. Sorry."
101 sat and quietly processed the apology. "…accepted."
"So what's this thing you 'needs' me to do, anyway? That you can't possibly ask anyone else to do, you has to come to me for."
A little huff. "I can't ask the others. They won't listen to me – you made sure of that. Not my jurisdiction, and you'd overrule me, anyway."
Zero stifled a chuckle. "Now now, Owun lad, let's not get in a snit over it. Just the chain of command, operating like it should."
While the humans had started to use it as an affectionate shorthand, Zero tended to call him Owun if he wanted to imply his rival was soft. Today, 101 was feeling like he was made of sterner stuff. "Oh… stroll off, Zero," he snapped, exasperated. "Are you gonna help with this or not?"
"Maybe if you tell me what it is you want me doing, I'll decide if I'm going to help, or just tell you where to stick it."
"Fine. Then it's all on you, if this goes balls-up." 101 sighed firmly. "Miss Kate says the… nanobot infection… was probably carried in a statue. Somebody made it, and sent it to her. We need to find it. We're assuming it must have been the martians, somehow, since we don't have anything like this technology on earth."
In spite of the seriousness, Zero couldn't resist. "Oh! Does that mean that when you saw them off last time, you did a half-arsed job of it because you was bored, again, and they managed to deliver their weapon right under our noses?"
"Ex-cuse you very much, they made their approach from the opposite side of the planet – which you would know, if you ever actually read a single one of my reports-"
"-and there he goes, making excuses for shoddy workmanship again-"
"And we did a perfectly good job of-… I'm sorry but when did we suddenly decide all of this was my fault?! Please, Zero. For once, can you just not? Miss Kate is in trouble and I'm trying really hard to help right now and you're just being an asshole, as usual. When I need you!" 101 said, in a frustrated rush. "All right? There, I said it! I need you! You're good at this sort of thing, where-… I'm… not. Can we not argue? For Miss Kestrel's sake? Please?"
A heavy silence took hold for a second or two, while Zero thought about it. He'd always been intending to help, right from the start – technically, getting the bossy little twit grovelling for daring to try and give him orders had been the end game, but he'd caved a lot faster than Zero had anticipated and he actually felt a tiny bit guilty for weaponising the situation. "Fine," he said, at last, gruffly. "Go through your idea, and we'll decide what we can do."
"Thank you." 101 allowed himself a second to get a little bit of stability back. "So. Hiro only took a little sample of blood, and he can't get the nanobots out of it. I think if he had a bigger sample, he might be able to work out how to control them, so maybe if we found the statue, there might be more of them still in it. There's a lot of us to help search, and we have senses the humans don't. Right?"
"All right, and how precisely is we meant to do that?" Zero growled, warily. "Does these teeny little robots have some sort of communications built in that we can home in on?"
101 hesitated. That was the one thing he hadn't thought about. "Iiii don't know? I don't think Hiro has enough to analyse, but I can ask him when he wakes up. And Five-five has a picture of it."
"A picture." Zero exaggerated a sigh. "How exactly is we meant to use a picture to locate a dangerous object full of microscopic shape-shifting robots."
"Captain Kestrel could tell you where the box was left. They were at the concert hall. They're probably in the trash, now, but I checked the schedule, and it might not have been collected yet. I don't think anyone would want to steal it, unless they knew it was for Kate and thought they could sell it-" A small note of alarm entered 101's voice. "Oh, no! What if someone else touches the statue and gets infected? Oh my stars, we wouldn't even know who they are-! Zero, you have to find it!"
"All right, all right. Keep your hair on. Just let me think."
The silence stretched out between them. 101 tried to concentrate on not fidgeting.
"…Zero?" he chased, anxiously, when the quiet had lasted just that little bit too long for him to be comfortable with, then singsonged; "I'll put you up for a medal if you find it…"
"Oh, don't be ridiculous. I doesn't need to be bribed," the sergeant major scoffed, then added, in a low chortle; "Although, I wouldn't say no if someone offered me one?" He mumbled something unintelligible to himself. "You got me on board, lad. But I need to discuss it with Captain Falconer. I think we is going to need more than just me, Five-five and Hudson, for this. Someone with hands would definitely help."
"Thank you. I'll keep you updated if we figure out anything new."
"Why's this got you so agitated, anyway? You doesn't normally lose your head over stuff like this."
101 had to take a moment to think about it. They butted heads over orders all the time, but pride meant he didn't often find himself trying to cajole his senior officer into going along with something, like this. "It was something Miss Kate said; it must be like when Zelda turned me into a cube. I… I don't think it's really that much the same, but… I guess I can sort of understand what she's experiencing, a little bit. And I was there when she turned human again. Zero, it looked so horrible! I was right there and I couldn't do anything to help!"
"Well, you're doing something now." Zero's reassurance felt weirdly stabilising. "I'll get Mary to call Hiro-"
"Uh."
"…'uh'?"
"I, um." There was a long pause. "Well, I sent him to bed. I thought time was of the essence so I might have been operating on my own initiative, just a tiny bit. He doesn't actually know I was gonna call you. I'll get him to call Mary when he gets up, instead."
"Oh ho! Naughty lad, going behind his back. All right. I'll let you know what Mary says. I'm sure she'll agree with us."
Us. Well, that was a good sign. Zero was already treating it like it was something they'd come up with together which meant he kinda liked it, and genuinely would support it. 101 closed the call feeling rather more confident than he had at the start.
oOoOoOo
Mary listened to Zero outline their discussion without interrupting, and remained silent for several seconds after he'd finished.
Zero made a little noise like clearing his throat. "…so… ma'am…?"
"It's been more than a day," she cautioned. "It could have ended up in landfill already."
"What if it hasn't? And that's not going to help our boys cure it, if we leaves it in the rubbish."
"No, it won't." Mary sighed and tapped her fingers to her lips. "Whether we think it still contains more of these… nanobots… or not? Feels irrelevant. It could be empty and harmless, but equally could be enormously dangerous. Getting that statue back is vital," she agreed. "I'll contact the venue, so they can start looking for it, and take steps to identify anyone who might have had contact. But," she lifted a finger, "we don't want to cause a panic, either. The last thing we need is for this to end up on social media before we even start."
"Would that be a bad thing? More people looking for it?"
"Maybe. I'm thinking about all those extra people getting in the way and causing hindrance – and even those with the best intentions will start asking questions. And we absolutely don't want anyone intentionally trying to infect themselves, because they want to turn into a bird. No, we'll have to move quickly, so go get your team together, sergeant major."
"Ten-ten, ma'am."
"And I'll brief Tiger," she added. "It sounds like Treehawk's just landed."
The unmistakable sound of the shuttle's engines drew Hawkeye back to the lounge. (In spite of Mary telling him that of course he had nothing to be ashamed about, for goodness sake, how could anybody have possibly known that Kate and the little falcon were one and the same person… he'd skulked off anyway, to play a racing sim and be alone with his guilt for a little while.)
Not long after the engine noise had faded, two sets of footsteps came from the hallway, and two blessedly-human officers (plus one zeroid) came in through the interconnecting corridor.
"Katie!" Hawkeye swamped her in an impulsive hug before recovering and stepping back with an embarrassed cough and an attempted handshake. "Uh, I mean. Good to see you human again, partner!"
"Good to see you too, you dope," Kate scolded, fondly, catching his arm and returning the embrace. "Thanks for bringing me home from the desert."
"Hey, you're welcome. Thanks for being persistent enough to convince me I needed to!"
When she stepped back, she noticed that Hawkeye had gone distinctly pink. She quirked an eyebrow.
"Uh, so." He scratched the back of his neck. "I'm sorry for treating you like an actual bird. And, you know. Stroking you, like you were someone's pet, or something. I wouldn't have if I'd known-"
"Hey. You can quit that right now." She waggled a finger at him. "I'd just woken up as a bird, and I was terrified you were gonna leave me in the desert to deal with somehow eating mice. That little bit of human comfort was totally what I needed, so don't go and start chewing yourself up over that."
He looked away, sheepish, and shrugged. "Might be too late for that."
After a relieved hug from Mary, the four humans settled around the table, to get a more official update from Kate, not a third-hand account via the pair of argumentative zeroids. Five-five hopped quietly up to a nearby perch, to be close by.
Zero didn't take long to spot him. He rolled to a halt at the bottom of the pedestal. "Five-five? Come on, lad. Look sharp. We need your help with something."
"Why?" 55 leaned slightly forwards in a frown. "I've done an awful job of preventing harm to Kate. There's lots of other zeroids who can help with your mandate."
"You refusing a direct order, Sonny Jim? I'll ban you from going up to Spacehawk, if this is what talking to the disobedient so-and-so based up there does to you."
"No? For this whole mess, I've accepted culpability. Now Miss Kate's safety is my responsibility!"
"Well that's tough cheddar, I'm afraid. We needs your expert knowhow in locating dangerous bird statues."
"Expert? I'm nothing of the kind. We never wanted it. We left it behind."
"Yes, but you know where you left it. And what it looked like."
Neither zeroid noticed that the humans' conversation had dwindled, and Kate had straightened up, listening intently to the zeroids talking.
"Five-five?" she said.
Her zeroid looked over to her.
"It's fine. I'm coming too, so we can go together."
Zero looked blindsided by the announcement and wasn't immediately sure how to react to it. "Er. Do you think that's wise, Miss Kestrel-?"
"I'm coming with you," Kate repeated, in a way that brooked no argument. "Sure as spacefire not sitting here on my maudlin ass just waiting to see what happens next. If I can do something to save myself, you bet I'm going to try."