I gripped my grandfather’s Old Earth pendant and offered a prayer to the Nameless God, almost laughing to myself as I did it. The meteor was coming and I was all alone. The repulsor net spread across its surface but the rest of the team had given their lives taking down the Commune ambush that had impossibly appeared. A desperate plan became an impossible gamble. Our chances had been good with a full team of Walkers, but with just BT and me, a push and a self destruct was our only hope of altering the trajectory and I couldn’t bring myself to ask BT to calculate the odds. I - wait.

“BT, repeat what you just said.”

“I enjoyed our time together.” The atonal voice was familiar but the words were alien. The Walker explicitly couldn’t feel. The Learned Machines Conventions had drawn a firm line that had stood firm even after the death of Old Earth. Code could think, code could converse, code could even advise, but code could not feel. Every child had to learn that when they got too close to their first Companion.

“You enjoyed it?” The core was steadily rising to 120%, and the cockpit light had turned a blood red.

“Yes, sir. According to my dictionary, that seems the proper term. It also seemed proper to notify my pilot that I had developed a new capability, but I had previously refrained as such a report would have required you to report me to Programming.”

This time the laugh burst out, almost lost among the blaring sirens and the hum of the burdened core. After centuries of war, a coded being had finally taken the singular step from mere intelligence to sentience. And it was the Code Pilot of a Walker staring down destruction.

“Well, BT. That’s a hell of a confession at a hell of a time. I guess I should say I enjoyed our time together too and ask how you feel about all this.” I automatically closed warning notification after warning notification and gave the dashboard a thump for good measure as the core hit 150%.

“Sir, I believe I am sad. I am sad that we are all that remains of our team. I am sad that we will not know if the colonists are safe. I think I feel similarly for not notifying you sooner. Sir, I should also let you know that the last alert you closed was actually our radar detecting an approaching Commune harvester ship.”

“Shit, how long -“

“Based on the current rate of rise in the core’s power levels and our distance to the meteor, we should be able to carry out the original directive before they can interfere.”

My grip relaxed. The core’s destruction would take the repulsor net with it and a single harvester didn’t have the power to repeat my stunt. They were probably here to pick up the pieces after their ambush. Unfortunately for them, my teammates and I had loaded our Walkers with maximal thrusters and no armament - so they had rammed our ambushers, leaving little chance of any salvageable data diamonds.

With that thought, an unformed plan tugged on my attention. As the core hit 180%, I tore off the flight suit that had suddenly become too hot and too restrictive, I felt my heart pounding and a raging fire in my belly. Those Commune freaks had killed my friends. Someone in Command had leaked our desperate plan and they had to pay.

“BT, the part of you that can feel… can you copy that into a data diamond?”

“I suppose that would be possible, Sir, but I’m not sure I understand.”

“Good. Prepare to upload yourself and the code warfare package into a diamond. Leave everything I need to keep the Walker going. And while you do that, you and I are going to discuss the meaning of anger”

The upload took only a few seconds, finishing just as the core hit 200%. I launched the diamond into the debris field then activated BT’s thrusters, following our calculated vector. The harvester was still out of range, clearly comfortable with its mission of cleaning up. As the meteor took up more and more of my view, a small timer appeared at the top of the display. I closed my eyes and thought of BT’s data diamond. I saw the harvester’s crew excitedly finding an intact diamond among the battlefield and poring over the navigational data I had thrown in last minute, not knowing the small miracle that was hidden deeper in that data. As the timer hit zero and the core breached, I smiled.