I’d barely even started a lock on the behemoth in front of me when it had blown my primary weapon away. DAMCON lit red on my left fore armature, too.

I desperately needed a connection back to the ship. An airstrike from the shuttles, maybe. At the very least, I had to let the drone pair and the other suit know where I was.

The hole where I’d come down was small, too small to hope for a comsat passing above. Too high to jump for. I needed to play for time.

“I can’t give you my dog tags. I need the air inside the suit so that I can breathe. But I can show you my face. Is that okay?”

The machine waved a massive drill head in strangely human gesture. I pinged an active lidar pulse against the smooth rock wall and got a faint reflection from her flank – stencilling. The Iron Lady. How curious.

Raising my arms slowly, I toggled the helmet visor to transparent.

I didn’t understand its reaction.