The Trouble Dog lacked landing gear in the conventional sense of the word, but her gravity generators—the same ones that provided us with a comfortable downward pull in her cabins and corridors—were perfectly capable of holding the ship aloft for the time it would take her to refuel. With a peevish whine, she settled to within ten metres of the apron and stopped. A circle of dust and dead leaves blew out from beneath her and tumbled away, only to fetch up against the sagging chain-link fence at the port’s periphery.

“Are you going ashore?” the Trouble Dog’s avatar asked from the bridge’s main screen.

“Yes.” I picked up my hooded fleece jacket from the back of my chair. “I believe I might take the air.”

“And the rest of the crew?”

“They can do what they like, as long as they don’t keep us waiting when it’s time to leave.” I pushed my arm into a sleeve. “Because the mood I’m in, anyone that’s late will be liable to find themselves marooned.”

Pulling the jacket around me, I walked aft, towards the cargo lock.

“You should have around sixty minutes,” the ship said. “Assuming there’s anyone even remotely competent on this backwater.”

“Perfect.” I pulled the zipper to my throat and flipped the fur-lined hood up to cover my head and ears. “Just enough time for a stroll.”

* * *

As we were only ten metres from the ground, there seemed little point in breaking out one of the shuttles. Instead, the Trouble Dog lowered us on a cargo pallet—the same one it had used on Camrose to welcome Preston aboard.

The three of us descended in silence. Preston stood huddled in a double-breasted black coat, an Academy scarf cosseting his pale neck, his thin hands scrunched in his pockets. His expression, as I watched him from my eye’s periphery, resembled one of appalled fascination, as if he couldn’t quite believe his surroundings or the chain of events that had led him to them. Beside him, Alva Clay stood with her arms wrapped across her chest and her face set in an intransigent scowl. Her loose bootstraps flapped in the sullen wind. At her thigh, she carried a solid-looking Archipelago pistol—a personal sidearm capable of punching an explosive slug through fifty centimetres of armour plate. Whatever threats she might anticipate facing in Northfield, this relic would certainly be more than a match for them. I had no doubt that, if she’d been so inclined, she could have massacred the entire population of the town without exhausting the weapon’s charge. She caught me looking at it and her eyes dared me to challenge her for carrying it. I think she wanted a confrontation in order to make a point about the security of ground operations, but I was too weary to take the bait. Instead, I shrugged and turned away.