Livesuit

Livesuit is presented as one continuous source chapter but moves repeatedly between different points in Kirin Foss's military service. It opens on his twenty-eighth operation, as a strike team led by Corval attacks a bridge-like alien growth above a river of bromine and hydrocarbons. Kirin leads Gleaner and Ross toward a target in the river while Corval, Piotr, and Noor provide support. An unseen organism crushes Kirin's left ankle and traps him underwater. His suit suppresses the pain and assists his movements while Gleaner and Ross pull him free. The other group sets the charges, the structure collapses, and Kirin elects to help cover the team's evacuation despite the damage to his leg. A later medical scan shows that the suit is replacing much of his foot and lower leg with its own tissue; earlier injuries have already left suit material inside his liver and spine.

The narrative returns to Kaladon, where twenty-three-year-old Kirin shares a home with Mina Caulson and works in mobile medical assistance alongside his friend Piotr. Mina works in hospice care. News reports describe an attack on Aumpaena, with approximately five billion people killed and other humans taken captive. The scale of the interstellar war, distorted reports, and conflicting timelines make it difficult to assess humanity's prospects. Piotr decides to enlist in the livesuit infantry because helping individual patients no longer seems sufficient while entire systems are under attack. He describes an eight-year subjective tour and a promised pension. Kirin eventually joins the same military intake, although the novella does not depict a single decisive moment when he chooses to enlist.

During intensive training, Sergeant Huang introduces the livesuit as a semipermanent weave bonded to its wearer's skin. It supplies nutrition, removes waste, regulates bodily functions and emotions, supports a constant connection to teammates and Command, and can move an injured soldier's body. Huang explains that soldiers provide the suit with a useful anatomical framework and human judgment in unfamiliar situations. He also promises that the suits will be removed at the end of a tour, restoring ordinary civilian life. Kirin trains with Piotr and Deborah Ross. After fitting, the soldiers cannot remove their helmets and lose ordinary experiences of food, touch, sexual desire, and physical privacy. On Kirin's first operation, Simeon commands a mixed team that includes Corval, Gleaner, Ross, and Piotr. They fight through the occupied ruins of Lapis City toward Otaki Square.

After the twenty-eighth operation, Kirin receives an old video message from Mina. She is noticeably older, speaks affectionately of their former relationship, and mentions watching a drama called Silent Horses together, which Kirin does not remember. Parts of her message have been censored. He finds and watches the drama but remains convinced he never saw it before. When he tries to send a reply, a security block intervenes. A security official tells him Mina died at fifty-eight and had been associated with an anti-military faction; Kirin finds the allegation hard to reconcile with the woman he knew, but cannot verify what happened. After the conversation, he discovers that the copy of Silent Horses he wanted to rewatch has been deleted from his suit. The incomplete message, the disputed recollection, and the censorship leave his uncertainty unresolved.

In an earlier mission, when Kirin has completed about a dozen operations, Simeon's team is dispatched to the Lirebas system to free prisoners before their captors execute them. An explosion follows the team's release of reconnaissance microdrones. Simeon, Hamze, and Jones are killed, and Piotr is badly struck while fighting two enormous alien attackers. Piotr's last spoken words are a call to distract the enemy. Afterward he communicates only through suit text, reporting severe damage to his jaw and throat. Corval is initially stunned by the losses, so Kirin issues orders until Corval resumes command. The survivors destroy a defensive turret and push toward the prisoner holding pens despite dangerously low ammunition. They kill the remaining executioners and interrupt an ongoing massacre. The freed prisoners cheer the infantry even as many captives and three of the rescuers lie dead.

After the twenty-eighth operation, Command reassigns Corval, Ross, and Noor, while Kirin is promoted and remains with Piotr and Gleaner. The newcomers are Chella Smith, Eric Santos, and Dawid Michah. Corval had described Santos as exceptionally talkative and funny, but the subdued Santos Kirin meets only vaguely recalls Corval and does not behave as expected. The narrative offers no definite explanation. Kirin's missing foot continues to hurt, and he finds that more of his leg has been replaced than the earlier scan showed. The black suit material now extends above his knee. His discomfort, grief over teammates, and desire to feel ordinary sensations are repeatedly managed by the suit's pharmaceuticals.

In the final medbay scene, Piotr tells Kirin he intends to reenlist and encourages Kirin to do the same. Piotr fails to recall a familiar phrase from their former rescue work, adding to Kirin's unease about changes in people's memories and behavior. Kirin maneuvers him into the scanner. Most of the visible upper head is shown as black suit material; the scan finds some surviving jawbone and teeth, while much of the throat remains organic. Kirin stops the scan before it reaches the rest of Piotr's body, so the full extent of replacement is not established. He fears that his friend may already be dead, that Control may be speaking through him, and that the suits were never intended to come off, but these remain Kirin's conclusions and questions rather than confirmed facts. When Kirin asks whether they ever go home, he immediately recasts the question as a joke about reenlistment bonuses. He agrees with Piotr's claim that serving the good side makes it worthwhile, concealing his suspicions as the novella ends.