Maltzing Mathilda

Two weeks and one questionable starport coffee later, the Morrigan coasted into orbit over Tech-World.

Caitlin was slumped in the pilot’s chair, still wearing the floppy Hiver hat and glaring at the dull-red planet below. “Good grief… it looks like someone tried to deep-fry Mars.”

Behind her, Maltz practically vibrated with anticipation. His tail thumped against the bulkhead. His makeshift cyberarm, still covered in souvenir stickers and patched wiring, gave a hopeful twitch. “This is it,” he breathed. “Tech-World. Paradise of prosthetics. The mecca of mechatronics. I’m about to have fingers that can do algebra.”

“I miss the beach,” Caitlin lamented, zooming the display in on the matte-black hemisphere of the port below. “And Torpedo Dave. Mostly his abs. But also the cocktails with fruit in ‘em.”

“You had six days of hedonistic luxury,” Maltz snapped. “Now it’s my turn. And I want an arm that can open a can of beans telepathically.”

Quinn wandered in, sipping tea from a mug labelled ERROR: MUG NOT FOUND. “I’ve reviewed Tech-World’s docking protocols. All passengers must submit to a mild neural scan, a footwear decontamination process, and at least one unsolicited sales pitch.”

Caitlin grunted. “I’d trade my neural jack for a lounger and a piña colada.”

Maltz turned, eyes gleaming. “Captain. I am thirty minutes away from possibly being able to play the piano with my elbow. Get it together.”

She adjusted the controls like someone surrendering to bad decisions. “Right so. Let’s go meet the robots. Try not to lick anything, and if anyone offers you an upgrade labelled ‘Experimental,’ read the warranty. Cathbad, you’ll be in charge.”

The AI sniffed from the overhead speakers. “I shall guard the ship with all the dignity of a poet watching someone rhyme ‘love’ with ‘dove.’”

Maltz pointed excitedly through the viewscreen. “Look at it! That whole black thing? It’s robots. All the way down. Microscopic. Modular. Smarter than most Scout officers I could name.”

The object in question loomed closer - a vast, matte-black hemisphere nestled in the wasteland like some ancient god dropped a contact lens and said ‘ah, sod it.’” As they approached, a ring on the surface rippled, then opened like a mechanical eyelid.

“The platform’s adjusting to our specs,” Quinn noted calmly, as the landing struts extended without being asked. “We are being... accommodated.”

The ship descended toward what looked like solid wall.

“That’s a barrier made of microbots,” Maltz said with reverence. “Completely solid. Unless they like you.”

“They ever not?” Caitlin asked, eyeing the hemisphere like it might leap up and bite her.

“Well,” Maltz said, “only when they think you’re carrying a virus. Or emotionally unstable. Or smell funny.”

The microbot wall folded open like a polite nightmare. The Morrigan slipped through with barely a ripple. Inside, the landing bay reassembled itself in real time - floors rising, scaffolds blooming from nothing, maintenance drones pouring in like ants discovering a sandwich.

---

The customs checkpoint looked like someone had weaponised a dentist’s office. A wall of chrome, scanners, and humming lights. Caitlin stepped up first, offered her ID chip to the receptacle, and waited.

The customs drone blinked. Or buzzed. Or pulsed. It was hard to tell with a thing shaped like a vending machine and lit like a nightclub.

“Subject identified: O’Neill, Caitlin. Age: thirty-nine. Visual age: approximately twenty. Error margin: significant. Query: explain discrepancy.”

Caitlin didn’t blink. “Clean living. Moisturiser. Possibly a deal with something unspeakable.”

The drone paused for a beat longer than strictly polite, then waved her through.

Maltz leaned in. “One of these days, you’re going to have to explain that.”

Caitlin shrugged. “One of these days, you’ll mind your own business.”

Quinn, without looking up, added, “Statistically improbable.”

The crew stepped out of the StarPort and into what was either a city or a nervous breakdown made out of chrome. There were no streets, just pathways that moved when you weren’t looking. Buildings rearranged themselves mid-sentence. Lights flickered in patterns that probably meant something, assuming you thought in hexadecimal.

There were no humans. Not one.

Instead, thousands of robots went about their business with the silent, terrifying competence of middle managers with Wi-Fi. Some hovered. Some rolled. One oozed politely across the pavement like melted ambition. The only sound was a faint background hum, like a thousand old modems trying to gossip.

Caitlin stopped in her tracks and narrowed her eyes.

“I don’t like it,” she said. “It’s too clean. Like a dentist’s office with a God complex.”

Then she appeared.

A brass-and-wood vision of baroque nonsense swanned toward them. It looked like a Vargr statue had mated with a Victorian music box and learned how to curtsy.

“Greetings, travellers!” trilled the robot, with theatrical flourish. “I am Mathilda, your liaison, concierge, and occasional moral compass. I exist to guide you through Tech-World and suggest only the finest retail, surgical, and philosophical experiences. Also I dance. Would you like a demonstration?”

“No,” said Caitlin.

“Yes,” said Maltz, slightly too fast.

Mathilda executed a flawless pirouette with hydraulic elegance.

Maltz had frozen. Not in fear. Not in suspicion. This was the stillness of a Vargr experiencing twelve conflicting instincts and one very specific fetish for gold-trimmed shoulder plates.

Mathilda turned her sculpted muzzle toward him, delighted. “Oh, darling. That arm is a tragedy. Functional, perhaps, in the way a broom handle duct-taped to a toaster is functional. I recommend the Limbrary for your... rustic limb situation. Tell them ‘Mathilda sent me’ and they’ll waive the consultation fee.”

Caitlin stared. “Do all the locals look like fever dreams from a prop department clearance sale?”

Mathilda beamed. Or at least rotated several light receptors to simulate beaming. “Only the attractive ones.”

Mathilda turned her sculpted head toward Quinn, optics gleaming with amusement. “Oh my, you’re still running on legacy Sindalian hardware. That’s... quaint.”

Quinn’s gaze didn’t flicker. “Correct. I was designed to endure. Not impress.”

Mathilda let out a delighted hum, the sound of someone both insulted and intrigued. “Delicious.”

Maltz just stared, ears tilted back in fascination and mild terror. “She’s perfect.”

“She's a concierge bot with cathedral ears,” Caitlin said flatly. “Get a grip.”

Mathilda clapped her hands. “Come now! This way to bodily improvement and ill-advised upgrades!”

And with that, she glided off like someone who knew exactly how weird her city was and had already made peace with it.

Caitlin followed. Grumbling. But still following.

---

The clinic Mathilda led them to was a polished cylinder of chrome and light, squatting between two structures that might’ve been libraries or weapons factories, depending on how one felt about architecture. A sign above the door read The Limbrary: Augmentation Division in fifteen languages, three of which Caitlin was fairly sure were extinct.

Inside, the reception area pulsed gently with some kind of medical jazz. Walls shimmered with diagnostic displays. Chairs adjusted themselves based on body posture. A surgical drone offered Caitlin a complimentary cup of nutrient broth.

She declined with prejudice.

Maltz stepped forward like a vargr greeting destiny. “Right. This is it. No more prototype trauma. I want something that can punch a hull and open a bottle of rum at the same time.”

A technician-robot glided forward. Its fingers unfolded into a fan of surgical implements, which somehow formed a handshake. “Welcome, honoured organics. May I interest you in the PassionGrip 7 or the WarMuse Deluxe? One self-lubricates. The other judges your targets.”

Maltz’s tail twitched. “I love this place.”

He wandered deeper into the showroom, trailing awe and poor impulse control. Arms extended from plinths. One flexed with a sound like a cello string being plucked. Another waved cheerfully, then tried to shake Quinn’s hand. Quinn declined.

Maltz was already deep in conversation with a six-eyed consultant-bot, gesturing wildly at his old limb and making speculative shapes in the air. One of the diagrams resembled a Swiss Army knife with feelings. Another included fire emojis.

“Leave me here,” he said happily. “Tell them I went peacefully.”

Caitlin folded her arms, eyeing the nearest medi-bot. “Alright. What’s your most sensible option? No lasers, no glow effects, no speaker that tells you you’re special. Just an arm. One elbow. One hand. Something you could fix with a wrench and a bad attitude.”

The medi-bot whirred over, projected a basic model, and blinked up a quote: Cr5,000. Durable. Unremarkable. Practically indistinguishable from a standard limb

She looked at it. Then at Maltz.

“That okay?”

Maltz didn’t even glance at the projection. “No,” he said, voice steady for once. “I nearly died on the Grand Mariner. I need something good. You promised.”

Caitlin’s face didn’t move, but something behind her eyes twitched. Just once.

She stepped forward, handed her credit chip to the consultant-bot, and said, “Give him what he wants.”

Then, quietly: “If the arm ends up with flamethrowers or feelings, I’m coming back for you.”

“Too late!” Maltz beamed as the medi-bot began scanning him. “We’re talking gold-plated, self-repairing, multi-tool interface. I might name it after her.”

Quinn frowned. “The robot or the arm?”

“Yes,” Maltz said dreamily.

Outside, Caitlin adjusted her Hiver hat, wrinkled her nose at the scent of ozone and overachieving, and muttered, “I heard there’s a bar called Luddites close by. Let’s go there. Somewhere in this circus, there’s a pint with my name on it and a chair that doesn’t try to optimise my posture.”

Luddites sat just outside the reconfigurable madness of the StarPort, tucked away like a guilty conscience. From the outside, it looked like someone had dropped an old Terran diner into the middle of a cyberpunk fever dream. Flickering neon sign. Fixed structure. No adaptive walls. It didn’t grow, shift, or recommend surgical upgrades on entry.

Quinn indicated a wooden bench outside. “I’ll wait here. No need to test their hospitality protocols.”

The door had a handle. An actual handle.

Inside, Luddites was a haven of deliberate anachronism. Battered stools. A jukebox that wheezed out power ballads. The ceiling fan rotated slowly, even though there was no real need for circulation. It just belonged in a place where things moved because someone had built them to, not because an algorithm thought it would be funny.

The bar was crowded, warm, and mercifully analog. No holo-walls. No scent-coded mood lighting. Just flat fluorescents, worn upholstery, and the faint smell of beer that had once been closer to bread than chemistry. Every surface bore the dents and scuffs of stories no one felt like telling twice.

Behind the bar was a human. A real human. Possibly an ex-Navy steward, or a retired biochemist who’d finally had enough of explaining limb regrowth ethics to tourists. Whatever he’d once been, he now poured pints with the grim focus of a man who’d watched too many friendships fall apart over automated tequila machines.

The house special was “Ale.” No qualifiers. You got what you got.

Near the door, a woman in a weathered Imperial Fleet jacket was having a low-voiced argument with a small Vargr. A pair of off-duty belters hunched over a table, passing a flask and trading route rumours in clipped, half-whispered phrases. And in one corner, a merchant captain was quietly losing at dice to an uplifted bear with a glass eye and the patient look of someone waiting for the universe to fold.

It was a bar full of jump-sick pilots and repair-weary crew, all trying to forget the week, the mission, or the last AI that tried to optimise their coffee.

Caitlin ordered the house ale with a nod and no small amount of suspicion. The bartender handed over a pint without ceremony. No scan, no surcharge, no cheerful ding. Just a glass, slightly chipped, filled with something vaguely amber and entirely real.

She took it, found the least wobbly stool near the wall, and sat down with a sigh that belonged to someone much older than she looked. The Hiver hat stayed on.

The knots in her spine finally started to come undone.

She let the first sip settle. It wasn’t good, but it was honest.

Outside, Tech-World hummed and reshaped itself for someone else. Inside, the ceiling fan turned. The jukebox crackled out something slow, nostalgic, and slightly off-key.

Caitlin closed her eyes. Just for a second.

And for that second, nobody needed her to fly, shoot, fix, or think.

---

Moments later, the door to Luddites creaked open with the self-importance of someone entering a courtroom, not a dive bar.

A young man stepped through, wearing full Imperial Navy blues, regulation hair, and the kind of expression that suggested he’d been waiting his whole life for the right music cue.

Caitlin glanced up from her drink and squinted. “Oh no. One of those.”

The man scanned the crowd, narrowed in on her, and marched over like the floor owed him obedience.

“You there.”

Caitlin looked up. “Me where?”

He pointed. “Don’t play dumb. That hat alone is a war crime. You’re clearly a pirate.”

She looked down at herself. Short tank top, baggy cargo pants, faded Scout jacket, Hiver hat sitting smugly askew.

“My hat makes me a pirate?”

“You match multiple known descriptors,” he said. “Questionable ship registry. Suspicious modifications. Freelance gait.”

“Gait?”

“And that expression.” He jabbed a finger. “That’s the expression of someone who’s committed acts of piracy.”

“That’s my face.”

“Exactly.”

He straightened. “I am Lieutenant Herold Nash of the Imperial Navy, ISS Lionsbane, and I hereby challenge you to a duel in the name of decency, order, and uniform code 43b.”

Caitlin raised an eyebrow. “You’re challenging me? In a bar called Luddites? Wearing that jacket?”

The bar chuckled. Someone at the jukebox muttered “Five creds on the hat.”

Nash flushed, stepped closer. “If you have any honour, you’ll accept.”

Caitlin tilted her head. “I was a Scout. We didn’t do honour. We did escape vectors and plausible deniability.”

Nash stood his ground, fists clenched, jaw set like someone who thought stubbornness counted as a weapon.

She gave him a long look. “You’re not going to go away, are you.”

“Not until you accept.”

“Alright. Fine,” said Caitlin, getting to her feet. “But if I win, you buy the next round.”

“And if I win?”

She grinned. “Then I’ll admit your boots are shiny and your threats are adorable.”

---

The duel, such as it was, lasted approximately seventeen seconds.

Eight of those seconds were spent arguing about whether the jukebox counted as a witness. Three went to someone at a corner table tossing Caitlin a sword with a sarcastic, “Try not to get blood on it.” The last six involved her slipping past his guard, treating his parry like it was optional, and marking Nash on the collarbone before he knew he’d lost.

Now he sat slumped at the bar, nursing a gin he technically bought himself, shirt collar slashed just enough to suggest danger without actual injury. His pride lay somewhere between the floorboards and the jukebox.

Caitlin sipped her drink and said, “You’re lucky I’ve mellowed with age.”

Nash didn’t answer. He was busy re-living the worst seventeen seconds of his career.

She raised her glass. Not quite to him. Not quite to anyone. “To honour. Poorly defined. Occasionally satisfying.”

He muttered something that sounded like “Bloody Scouts.”

“Close enough.”

And the bar carried on around them, unbothered.

---

Caitlin was halfway through her fourth pint and only just starting to forgive the universe when she got a call from the Limbrary. A polite voice spoke. “Captain, please come get your Vargr. He is technically conscious, though we advise supervision. The fast drugs have produced some... enthusiasm.”

From somewhere behind the voice, she could hear a faint clang, followed by something that sounded suspiciously like a howl of triumph.

Caitlin rubbed her bridge of her nose. “I’m on my way. If he starts naming tools after himself, sedate him again.”

And with that, she left Luddites behind, walking out into the sterile madness of Tech-World like someone who knew exactly what kind of trouble she was bringing home.

Quinn stood from the bench as she passed, falling into step without a word.

She glanced at him. “They didn’t throw you in jail for loitering?”

“Not yet,” he said. “But I was approached by a vending unit offering therapy.”

Maltz emerged from the auto-surgeon suite like a vargr reborn, cradling his new cyberarm with the reverence most people reserved for newborns or heavily discounted starship parts. The arm gleamed. It hummed. It looked like it came with opinions.

"Behold!" he declared, spinning theatrically. "Her name is Mathilda."

"You named the arm?" Caitlin said.

"She's got a built-in soldering iron," Maltz beamed. "And she does this…"

He tapped something on his wrist. The fingers rippled through six delicate motions and then played the first four notes of Heart of the Starforge by drumming on a nearby countertop.

"You look like someone built a power tool out of an identity crisis," Caitlin said.

"I feel amazing," Maltz replied. "Observe."

He held up the arm. One finger rotated, clicked off, and was replaced by a compact rotary saw. The blade spun up briefly, purring like a satisfied cat.

Quinn tilted his head. “Do you anticipate immediate structural conflict?”

“Demonstration only,” Maltz said, retracting the saw. Another finger extended, unfolding into a diagnostic scanner. It flickered uncertainly, steadied, then pulsed green with a pleased-sounding chirp.

Caitlin watched it with a frown. “That meant to be blinking like that?”

“Still tuning,” Maltz replied. “Early days. She’s learning.”

He flexed the hand. The servos moved smoothly. Then the index finger twitched, paused, and made a half-hearted attempt to eject itself before settling down again.

Maltz cleared his throat. “Minor firmware confusion. Perfectly normal.”

“Of course it is,” Caitlin said. “Just make sure she doesn’t declare independence before lunch.”

Quinn raised one brow. “It appears Mathilda is now attempting to scan me.”

There was a small beep.

Maltz retracted the sensor. “She’s curious.”

“About my liver?”

“About everything,” Maltz said, “That’s what makes her special.”

As they walked away, Caitlin flicked through the clinic invoice on her data pad.

She stopped. Blinked. Scrolled again, slower.

“Three. Hundred. Thousand?!”

Maltz, tail still wagging, didn’t even glance over. “Includes parts, warranty, trauma buffer, and a complimentary polishing cloth.”

She read aloud. “Quick Arm. Power and dexterity rating fifteen. Armour rating twelve. Self-repairing. Integrated toolkit. Sensor array. Heavy equipment mount?!”

“It can carry ten kilos of industrial tools,” Maltz offered helpfully. “Or an espresso machine. That’s versatility.”

“You could’ve bought an air/raft and still have change left.”

“That wouldn’t sing shanties in four languages or detect uranium.”

She stared at him.

“It was discounted,” he added, not even slightly convincingly.

Quinn peered at the breakdown. “This line item simply says, ‘Mathilda’s fee – don’t ask.’”

Caitlin rubbed her temples. “I’m going to need five drinks. And a tax write-off.”

Her comm chimed. Cathbad’s voice followed, dry as ever. “Captain. I have something... intriguing. A new job. It may even be legal.” A pause. “Unlikely, of course. But interesting.”

She sighed. “We never get a bloody holiday.”

Maltz flexed his new arm. It purred. “I’m bringing the arm.”

“Obviously,” Caitlin muttered. “It’s the most qualified one here.”

She adjusted her Hiver hat. “Right then. Let’s see how bad it is.”