Anwei has not aged well; she is still well-muscled and solid under her plantsuit, but the long lines of her mouth are stamped deep into her face, and she can no longer pass for human. Her species is not a long-lived one, and she is bleakly aware that she might die of old age before this war ends.

She doesn't talk much, anymore. It had been ten years without Horanckk, ten years without a trace of her best friend and confidant. And as time went by, more and more time without him, she found herself less and less able to connect to the people around her.

She's worked in every department, a year here, a year there, and improved every one with her work. She keeps working, new projects and plans all the time. And when the battles thunder around them and the non-combatants flee to the shelters, she is often first there – to spend her time sitting in the corner, staring silently, wondering which one of them is tasked to kill her if the Vizsnunishne were to arrive and try to save her. She knows too much about how the systems work to be allowed to leave, surely.

Right now she is far in the back of Medical, working on a fist-sized robot that can monitor people on the battlefield, remotely broadcast their location and condition, clamp a wound or provide oxygen or dispense any one of a dozen necessary drugs. And explode, violently, if it is captured or tampered with.