Was it because Ivy was there, and so Raymond was showing off? Had Hsu miscalculated the impact? Or had Pritchard not been paying enough attention? It was probably a mix of all of those things, to be honest. But, whatever the reason, they made a terrible error.

Comets go fast. Not as fast as Raymond, but fast enough that they have a frighting amount of kinetic energy. They are called dirty snowballs, because they are lumps of rock and grit and dust and ice and volatile compounds, and although that doesn't sound so bad, you wouldn't want one of them hitting you going at a hundred kilometres per second.

Raymond wasn't so stupid as to get in the path of the thing itself; in fact, he stayed quite a long way from it, although he sent drones to all sorts of different places to get cool videos. But what he got wrong was that he flew far too low over the planet. Perhaps he thought that he would be safer with a good chunk of Darta between him and the impact site: whatever. It doesn't matter.

Because the shock wave was immense.

The comet hit the atmosphere like a furious falling angel, blazing with heat and light, lightning flickering around it as it blasted through the planet's magnetic field. Everyone went ooh and aah as they watched the spectacular light show. And then they started rocking, gently at first. And then more, and more.

And suddenly a whole lot of alarms went off.

The impact had caused a huge explosion in Darta's upper atmosphere, large enough to crack open a small moon; and all that momentum had to go somewhere. And where it went was into vast winds that ripped across the planet, great pressure waves that slammed into them, swatting them like the tiny fly they were. Raymond immediately started flying up, but it was too late.

Raymond was a spaceship in the truest meaning of the word. He'd been built in space and lived in space. He'd never experienced an atmosphere – he had shuttles for that – and he wasn't at all designed for nasty atmospheric turbulence. And so, bits broke, and much smaller, but much more worrying explosions erupted across his starboard flank. And when Pritchard looked at their status, everything said, nope. No going home for you.

Ivy was scared. More scared than she'd ever been. But Ivy was a dock worker. And she was in love. And she wasn't going to let her boyfriend die here. Not today, not ever.

She didn't need the dock computers. She knew Raymond's schematics better than her own. She'd spent months lovingly maintaining him, and when the damage feed started playing, she knew exactly what was wrong and how to fix it. So, she decompressed the shuttle bay as quickly as she could, opened the doors, climbed out, and got to work.

She had to cling on to Raymond's hull as he rocked around. She had never been this close to a planet before, never seen the browns and oranges of Darta so close, a great muddy swirl below her. And she had never worked on a ship while it was moving. But nevertheless she worked.

Because she was moored on a thick steel cable, she looked even more arachnid than normal; and she delicately bound wires, patched holes, sealed leaks, held on to what she could. And around her, the winds buffeted her, shook Raymond, made components rattle and bounce. But she didn't give up.

Raymond talked to her as she worked. He told her what they were going to do when all this was over, how they would be together, how they would laugh about it, where the next damaged section was. And because workers are different to humans, she talked back to him, made jokes, tried to keep positive.

And finally it was done.

Pritchard looked at the status report. It wasn't exactly all green, but there were amber flecks amongst the reds, cautious suggestions that perhaps if you did this, you might be able to move there. He spoke to Ivy and Raymond; the three agreed; and, without waiting for Ivy to get back in, Raymond turned up every engine to the maximum he could.

And so, with all eight of her claws and both her service mandibles gripped onto holds on Raymond's back, she rode up and away; and she whooped with joy as the great gas giant fell from under them, and Raymond broke orbit.

#

They limped home with only half the cargo they were supposed to bring, going much slower than normal; but the fact is, they were moving, and a friend of Raymond's called Gina met them and towed them home as best as she could. And, when they docked, the whole station was watching, and they cheered and clapped as Raymond came in, and when Ivy climbed back out onto her perch on Raymond's back, they cheered even more. She wouldn't let anyone else work on him, and as soon as it was safe, she started the process of rebuilding all his failed components.

They were married within the month. No one knew of any workers who had married before; but there was no law prohibiting it, so Counsellor Keller made up a ceremony and performed it in the dock, wearing a spacesuit. And from then on, people called Raymond her husband; and no one laughed at her.

And Ivy stayed in love.