“There’s no way in,” Cat said.

“And no safe place to land and walk in from. I don’t know what we were thinking to come out here.”

“Curiosity,” Scottie said. He leaned over the control console to peer up at the metal cliff looming ahead of them. “And didn’t that kill the cat?” he asked.

“What about the hangar bay?” Cat asked, ignoring Scottie.

“We can look,” Molly said, “but I’d think they’d have shut it before reentry.”

She took Parsona up and spiraled around toward the ship’s belly, remembering the last time she had flown along that very section of the massive carrier. Four Firehawks had been escorting her—their missiles armed and locked. The size and shape of the hull hanging in space had filled her with fear. She’d been convinced the Navy was about to airlock her and her friends for a string of tragic events.

Now, despite the unease she felt from recognizing the craft, it leaned sadly in the dry atmosphere of her backwoods home planet. Unmoving. Harmless. It didn’t seem right that such a large creation could meet its end in such a short period of time, or end up somewhere as inconsequential as Lok.

“Damn thing’s open,” Scottie said, pointing to one of the carrier’s airlock bays. “Can we fly in?”

Molly pulled up opposite the airlock. The StarCarrier was leaning to one side, the open hangar pointing up to the sky, which meant she had to angle Parsona’s nose down so they could see inside. She reached for the spotlight controls before noticing the lights inside the bay were still functional.

“Something’s not right here,” she said.

“Nobody’s home,” said Cat.

That’s exactly what didn’t seem right. Molly could see the full length of the tilting hangar, all the way to the far wall, which hung way below them. There should’ve been a pile of Firehawks and Scouts down there, trillions of dollars of destroyed Navy hardware lying in a pile.

“Must’ve been in the fight,” Cat said.

“Or the crew used everything they had to escape.”

“I didn’t see nothing fly out on its way down,” Scottie said.

“Me neither, but there were Firehawks raining down earlier, before we left Bekkie.”

“Not enough,” Molly said. “There would’ve been hundreds of them aboard.” She turned to the others. “Should we peek inside? Look for survivors?”

Cat turned to her and shook her head. “Ain’t no one survive this. Not a crash like this.”

“Yeah, but there’s still power. Maybe someone—I dunno, I just always think there’s a chance.”

“If you wanna stick your nose in and take a sniff, be my guest. But get ready to hightail it when this puppy goes down.”

Molly turned the radio down to its lowest broadcast setting, just in case anyone in the fleet above was listening in. She brought the mic to her lips.

“Zebra wing—” She hesitated, trying to think up a lie, then figuring it didn’t matter. “—Parsona here. Any survivors, please come back on twenty-two eighteen.”