Work Text:
The alert claxon blared out three low notes calling all to attention. The strike team was back. And this time it wasn’t an emergency landing. Natalie grabbed her duffle bag of tools and hurried to the hangar. Ramya and Ajay were already waiting for her at the back of the steel cavern. It was the three of them who kept Anchor Rock Base in peak condition. Without them, the militia would lose another valuable foothold in contested space.
A pair of dropships glided into the hangar and released the titans slung below. Already Ramya was grumbling and pulling at her hair. Both mechs were damaged; riddled with bullet holes and marked with laser scorches. Her nights would be long and grueling behind an acetylene torch. At least both VW-6137 and VP-2016 were moving under their own power. The two Titans lumbered forward and knelt down to release their pilots. Now it was Natalie and Ajay’s turn to accept their weekend plans were as shot to hell as their respective patients.
“Can ya keep yaself in one piece for just one mission? I’m not asking for much just one time! As a favor, Kairi, I swear I should just let ya bleed out one of these days!” Ajay rushed over to VP’s pilot and mustered her staff to get her a stretcher. Kairi was banged up and bleeding from her head but smiling that same cocky smile she had right after she won a round of darts.
“Six kills baby! Ace in a day, too easy out there.” She staggered forward into the waiting arms of the med staff but Natalie was focused on her responsibility.
Wraith climbed out of VW-6137 trying to act tough, trying to act like there weren’t holes shot through her abdomen, trying to ignore the fact her left forearm dangled by wires. She may have been a simulacrum but that didn’t make her immortal.
“What happened to you!? You promised me you’d be safe, Wraith. Look at your chassis. Oh no this is not good, definitely not good.” Natalie’s hands moved over the armored plating of Wraith’s chest. She could feel components rattle and slip. Mercifully Wraith’s power core seemed intact.
“I tried to be. Promise.” Her voice was glitching out and garbled. Natalie grabbed her chin and tilted her head up. Another hole was shot right through her neck.
“At least you are here now. Come.” Natalie led Wraith along. As they passed Kairi the Pilots traded a fist bump to the annoyance of their caretakers.
Wraith’s legs and motor functions had been spared damage but only just. The simulacrum maintenance bay was an ad hoc space not far from the hangar. What had once been a disused conference room was now crowded with consoles and monitors that obscured the walls. Racks of spare parts and tools had replaced filing cabinets and desks. The only remnant of its former function were the handful of chairs scattered around.
Natalie helped Wraith on to the reinforced table in the room’s center. She carefully notched multipin connectors into diagnostic ports and prepared fiber optic uplinks. Wires poked into her neck and the back of her head, more patched into the damaged section of her arm. Computers in the room flickered to life as Natalie swung an exam light over the damaged Sim.
“Ma Cherie what happened? Are you hurting?” Natalie stared at the clean holes punched through Wraith.
“Don’t worry, I disabled my pain precepts hours ago. If I hadn’t I would have been too distracted to get us out of there.” There was a consistent buzz in her voice. 50 hertz, if Natalie was right, meaning her main electrical bus was interfering with her voice box. “There was an IFV hidden in a tree line, we never saw it on thermals. They must have new sabot rounds. They went right through VW’s armor. And me.”
“You are very, very lucky.” Natalie scoffed. She prodded one of the bullet holes with a screwdriver.
“Lucky to have you. To put me back together again.” Wraith opened any access panel not pinned shut by damage.
Natalie carefully pried off her damaged chest plate. Shrapnel damaged cables came dangerously close to short circuiting, control boards were singed black with blown fuses. She wedged her screwdriver under another damaged panel and pushed. It felt wrong the way the metal creaked and bent, the amount of force she had to apply. Opening her up felt like a violation yet to Wraith it was as mundane as changing clothes. The plate popped free and clattered to the floor leaving delicate components exposed. Natalie’s heart dropped.
A silver plate no larger than a deck of cards had fallen victim to the autocannon fire. Its shiny casing was warped and cracked, crumbs of blackened crystal tumbled from its fractured core. And on Wraith’s opposite side the device’s twin was scratched and battered by shrapnel yet mercifully intact. Only luck had saved her back up memory unit from being destroyed like the primary, and with it, everything that Wraith was. Natalie pulled the destroyed drive from the simulacrum's abdomen.
“You have to be more careful. This is you, dummy!” Natalie waved the ruined drive in front of Wraith.
“The backup was undamaged, it’s not a big deal. Even if it was we have another back up here and-“
“That’s not the point! What if we try to restore you and it doesn’t work? What if the base is attacked and we lose that back up? What if I can’t put you back together next time?” Natalie pushed her forehead into Wraith’s chest. Hot tears streamed down her cheeks as she sniffled. “I can’t lose you too. I can’t lose you again. Please! Please. I need you to stay.” Natalie wept, her tears breaking into uncontrolled sobs. She held onto Wraith’s chassis, the memories of flesh instead of metal now further away than ever. She could love the machinery but not without Wraith’s soul. The war had taken so much from her and left nothing but tombstones and ghosts, and she was the only ghost Natalie could still hold.
An arm wrapped over her, fingers gentle as ever spread across Natalie’s back. Wraith held her close. She let her cry for a while. The broken memory drive clattered to the floor as Natalie wiped her eyes.
“Oh, I cried all over your wires. I’m sorry.” Natalie choked out a forced laugh and blotted up her tears. “Will you promise to be careful?”
Wraith’s palm cupped her cheek. Metal rough with battle damage caressed the skin she fought to keep safe from the war. She turned to look at Natalie and meet her eyes. Though her vision was distorted and aberrated she preserved the image in her memory.
“I promise. I’ll be careful. I’ll be safe.” She said.
The words hung between them. They sat a while in Natalie’s head. They were true. They had to be true. If one thing could be the truth in the entire frontier it had to be that. Natalie found her hand in Wraith’s, the one barely still attached to her chassis. Her knight in shining armor was battered and rusted but still her knight. She smiled a little.
“And you better remember your promise, dummy. Ugh it is going to take so long to fix all of this, I wanted to relax this week.” Natalie sighed and pulled up her tool cart.
“That’s okay. I can spend all that time with you. And I never mind having you inside of me. Hey!” A screwdriver ricocheted off of her forehead.
“You are a ridiculous woman, Wraith. Keep misbehaving and I will not fix your voice.” Natalie forced out another laugh. Looking down at Wraith’s opened and fractured chassis though, she had to fight to keep her spirits up. The other woman was terrible with promises.