Jove helped his mother clear the table as they finished eating. He was on his way to grab the last plate when he noticed Aster walking in the direction of the common room.
"Aster," he said.
"My favorite nephew," she said, wistfully.
"I appreciate that, even if I'm your only nephew." He smiled and glanced around once, making sure they were still alone. "Can we talk about last night?"
"I don't remember last night, darling," said Aster, shaking her head. "I honestly don't. I didn't do anything foolish, did I?"
He frowned, examining her expression for any hint of deception. She seemed sincere, but she was also an actor, by trade.
"You didn't seem that drunk last night," he said.
"Jovian," she said, in a careful voice. "If a woman tells you that she doesn't remember what happened the previous night, what good can come from forcing the issue?"
He didn't know what to say. She had a point. If she really didn't remember, then she didn't remember. In some ways, it let them both off the hook, even if she was lying. He nodded slowly and tried to decide whether he felt relieved or disappointed.
"Hey, cheer up," said Aster, touching his shoulder. "I don't buy my sister's doomerism, at least not completely. We'll be back to our old lives, or something resembling them, soon enough. I have to believe that."
"Yeah, maybe," he said. "I suppose we'll see."
He found his mother in the command center after he'd finished the dishes, busy at her workstation. He leaned against the door and eyed the main screen, which currently showed the slow-falling but unyielding snow.
"Anything else I can help with, Mom?" he asked.
"Cleaning the solar panels off again, if you're up for it," she said. "It's always been a daily task here when we get snow."
"On it."
Having a practical task to perform seemed like a good way to get his mind off Aster and the events of the previous night. Part of him wished he could forget it as easily as she seemed to, or pretend as well as her, if that was her game.
But ultimately, there were larger matters at hand. He suited up in the entrance chamber, putting on the Bluetooth headset and making sure it was connected at the door, just to be safe.
"Can you hear me?" he said.
"I can hear you, Jovian," said his mother. "It shouldn't be as messy out there as it was last time, but you should still be careful."
"I will."
The frigid air made his teeth hurt as he stepped through the outer doors, boots crunching through the icy snow. He walked toward the shed and tried the door, but it was frozen shut and refused to give on his first attempt.
"Jove." His mother's voice was suddenly full of concern, with a hint of fear, even, in the headset. "Get back inside. Now."
"What's going on?"
"One of the ice drones is circling the station."
Muttering a curse, Jove spun around to scan the surrounding area. Sure enough, one of the ice drones was kicking up a flutter of snow in the distance as it skied in a wide arc around the station's north side.
He was already cut off. Rushing toward Termina's doors would only draw more attention. Jove instead opted to slink around to the side of the shed, crouching low in hopes of staying hidden until the ice drone moved on.
"Keep me updated," he said, into the headset. "Let me know when it moves on."
"Jove," said his mother, voice serious and commanding. "It isn't that simple. They aren't affected by cold or fatigue. It will wait as long as it has to."
Jove had no real choice but to test that conclusion. He waited for several long minutes. The cold sapped at his resting body with twice the ruthlessness as it did while he was active, which was unhelpful and, more importantly, unsustainable.
He risked peeking out from the edge of the shed. The ice drone had circled around to the other side of the station. He saw his chance and seized it as much as it seized him, breaking into a dead sprint for the station's doors.
The ice drone seemed to ski back into view instantly, moving at breakneck speed. In the time it took Jove to slide to a stop, it closed on him to an extent that birthed a sense of true fear deep in his gut and bowels. It was so fast. Too fast. Might as well try to outrun a cheetah on its home turf.
He tried to sprint back toward the shed. His mother shouted desperately in the headset for him to get inside, barricade the doors, to hide and hold on. It was already too late. He could hear the drone closing in on him without needing to look over his shoulder, one of those sensations that touches on instinctual memories of being hunted in the natural world.
Somehow, he did make it to the shed's door. It was still frozen shut and refused to open on his first pull. Jove felt a flash of frustration, followed by intense, almost amusingly dark disappointment.
The ice drone might drill him to death with its horrifying razor spiral arm, but the Antarctic cold still found a way to make itself culpable.
He turned around, back set against the shed doors, paralyzed by such intense fear that at first, when he didn't see the drone closing the last gap, he thought he'd gone partially blind from stress. He breathed out and saw a plume of white.
Eve was outside. In a move of impossible bravery or sheer stupidity, she'd put on her skis and snow wear and was cutting a path across the endless white.
"You didn't really think I'd let you save my life without returning the favor, did you, little brother?" Eve's voice carried a lilt of excitement over the headset.
The ice drone had paused momentarily to take in the new target. It made a u-turn as it turned around and took off in the other direction.
"Eve!" shouted their mother. "Get back inside! Goddammit, I can't lose you both!"
Jove was momentarily mesmerized by Eve's skiing, the intensity of her movements, the way her body seemed perfectly suited for each motion of the poles, even the way her jacket rippled in the wind.
She was balanced, she was elegant, but she just wasn't quite fast enough. The drone was closing the distance, slowly but surely. Jove turned his focus back to the shed door. He gave it a hard kick and heard ice snap loose from essential places.
This time, it opened as he yanked with all his strength. He rushed toward the snowmobiles, which still had their keys in ignition. Vehicle theft was probably fairly rare in Antarctica.
"Come on…" Jove hurriedly tried to start one of the ones he remembered his mother favoring when they'd gone out to look for Ryan. "Come on!"
The block heaters had been keeping them warm at a low level this time around, but the engine still sputtered and turned over. He tried again and again, alternating between swearing loudly and quietly coaxing the machine like he might with a sleepy animal.
"Jove, just get back inside!" said his mother.
"I'm not leaving her out here!" he shouted.
He didn't stop, doing everything he could think of to spur the vehicle alive. He made a silent promise to be a better person if it would just start for him. A better brother, a better nephew, a better son.
"Yes!" Jove slapped the handlebars in victory as the snowmobile finally growled to life.
He sped out of the shed, reorienting himself in the direction of Eve and the ice drone. She was a fair distance from the station now, in the same direction he'd gone looking for her during the whiteout conditions the previous morning.
Her trajectory wasn't perfectly straight, and she seemed to be scanning in front of her. The drone was gaining on her worryingly fast, despite how powerful of a skier she was.
Jove had been hoping that the sound of the snowmobile would draw it away from her and back to him, but it hadn't. He narrowed his eyes at Eve and suddenly understood his sister's plan as he watched her continue with her focus fixed in the distance.
She was heading for the same crevasse she'd fallen into. If she could somehow trap it or even just trip it up, they might have a chance. Jove watched breathlessly, seeing Eve get closer and closer to the spot.
She dropped into an even deeper crouch just as she reached the crevasse and suddenly leapt into the air, getting an impressive amount of height and sailing over the crevasse. The ice drone continued forward.
Jove held his breath… and then exhaled in disappointment.
The drone jumped at the last second and cleared the crevasse with the ease of unthinking machinery, passing over Eve as well, who'd slowed down in hopes of ending the chase. It landed on the other side of her, putting her in a spot where the crevasse was blocking one avenue of escape and the killer robot the other.
"Eve!" shouted Jove.
He had a plan of his own that was not much different. There was a snowbank that looked enough like a jump for him to take the risk. Jove gripped the handlebars for dear life as his metal steed went up the drift like a perfect wedge, launching him into the air and over the crevasse.
He landed hard, immediately steering and then counter-steering to keep himself aimed at the machine. The drone turned his way right as the front of the snowmobile collided with it, knocking it down and Jove off onto the ice.
He felt his face scrape against the surface crust, cold and sharp at the same time. Eve was shouting something, but he'd lost the headset. There was a new cut on his scalp where he'd taken a decently hard blow during his tumble and he had to force himself to think, to react.
The ice drone was getting up, and if anything, it was doing it faster than he was. The marvels of technology, he thought absently. Jove's eyes locked onto the crowbar, which he'd jammed in the ice when he'd been saving Eve. He stumbled toward it and kicked it, breaking it loose.
It felt a little unwieldy in his thick gloved hand, and the steel was so cold that it made his palm ache despite the layer in between. Eve had one of her ski poles in hand, but was backing away, trembling with fear. Which was fair, Jove had to admit. He saw why his mother and the other researchers had nicknamed the ice drones terminators.
The whining hiss of the ice drone's drill snapped him back to the moment. Jove charged forward with a roar and tried to dome the machine in the head.
It blocked with the drill, and the vibration was so jarring that Jove almost lost his grip on the crowbar and accidentally hit himself in the shoulder from the recoil.
He circled the robot, baring his teeth as though it were an animal he could scare off. The drone pulled its drill arm back and thrust it forward hard. Jove knew there was no blocking its attacks, but it still took all his courage to dodge out of the way instead.
He tripped and fell sideways on the ice. His eyes locked onto the ice drone's treads, one of which had a sliver of damage where it had deteriorated from an encounter with a rock or something sharp.
He thrust the crowbar into the gap and twisted hard. Nothing happened at first, the tread refusing to give, and then there was a loud pop and the ice drone sagged sideways.
The machine tried to move forward and bear down on him for an easy killing blow, but the broken tread made it turn in a circle instead, and then fall down completely. Jove wasted no time rushing to his feet and pushing on the offensive.
He shouted as he drove the crowbar's tip into what amounted to the ice drone's face. It broke through on the second jab. Jove kept going, hands aching from the cold and the impact of metal on metal. He didn't stop until the machine was twitching in a manner reminiscent of a crushed insect and the drill's whining dropped to a soft, impotent hum.
"There," he muttered. "That's it."
He looked over at Eve. She was shaking her head, expression still terrified. Somewhat reluctantly, Jove followed her gaze.
Three more drones were headed toward them in the distance.
"We have to move!" Jove grabbed Eve's arm and started running for the station.
"We won't make it in time!" cried Eve. "Jove!"
The three ice drones caught up to them in seconds flat. Jove took heavy breaths, still winded from the previous encounter and working with a head injury.
"Stay behind me," he muttered to Eve.
"It won't make any difference," she said, drawing up even with him, still holding a ski pole.
The three drones all spun up their drills, the horrible hiss only feeding into Jove's fear and anticipation of pain and violence. They closed the last bit of distance.
The drone in the middle suddenly broke into motion. Jove brought the crowbar up, but he hadn't been the machine's target. With ruthless efficiency, the middle drone jammed its drill into its compatriot's face plate.
The other drone watched the melee of metal placidly, not reacting like a human would to a companion's sudden betrayal. The middle drone came for that one next, drilling into its face. It went down, but the middle drone kept going, obliterating its head with the drill with brutal resolve.
"A little grisly, I know, but the head is where most of the sensors and communication antennae are located."
The voice came from within the drone which had attacked the others, and it was familiar to Jove, though it took a second to place.
"…Andromeda?" he said, shaking his head. He tried to make sense of the situation, still holding the crowbar. "You can control the ice drones?"
"I should be able to, but unfortunately, I can't right now, aside from this one," said Andromeda. "There's so much I need to explain. I had to leave Termina's systems, the only home I've ever known, but I came back. The quickest way here with communications down was to hitch a ride, though unfortunately I picked one that was networked to its companions like a flock of geese."
"Jove!" Eve seized Jove's forearm with a pincer grip. "Mom says we can't trust her."
"…What?" Jove shook his head.
Andromeda had turned off the ice drone's drill, but still remained within attacking distance.
Eve pressed the fingers of her freehand to one ear of the bluetooth headset. "According to our mother… Andromeda might be working with the AI that set off the nukes."
Jove took a step back, unsure of what to think, and even less sure of what to do next.