I have to work the cramp out of my jaw. “What is it?”

Hail offers us a feed from her hull cameras.

The capsule’s body is almost perfect, still lined in Sigurd’s mirror-finish. The metal has deep gouges in one end, but we already know where those came from. The Juno and I look up at the statue, and the ragged hole in the wall behind it.

“It hit hard.”

“There’s more.” Hail gets her fingers underneath it, rolls it over in the sand.

A white barcode, stencilled across the casing. There’s a serial number underneath, and a few markings I don’t recognise. Under that, though, is something I do.

ALL-PTS-EMERG

Emergency, emergency, all points respond.

It’s the call you make when your instruments are screaming at you, when every warning light is burning itself out, and there’s nothing you can do but watch.

Under that is something else.

SLS 67617

DEMIURGE

“Christs,” Salt and I whisper, almost all at once.

He recovers first. “It’s a distress beacon.”

“From Sigurd’s fucking mothership.”

Hail holds it up where we can see. “It has a serial number and locator frequencies. Just like I’d expect.”

She takes another step, stops short.

“What’s wrong?” I ask.

The feed zooms in, Hail’s lenses working hard to pick something out of the paint. I find the edge of a word, etched into the side with a chisel. The scratches aren’t deep enough to find the metal underneath, but they break the smooth mirror coat.

Salt peers over her shoulder. “What does it say?”

The Spirit collects a handful of reddish dust, and rubs it into the cuts.

DONT LET THEM TOUCH YOU

Twelve

TWELVE

HORIZON TAKES ME by surprise.

It starts with a shadow: a dark mass in the distance and a lingering sense of weight. Then the first signal mast breaks the cloud cover, steel tips cutting the froth like there’s a forest underneath. Ranging and augur stations pop out every few seconds, mixed in with silo doors and the barrels of a hundred thousand guns.

The dreadnought filters in, but it doesn’t feel like we’re coming up on a ship. We’ve dropped into a misty canyon, where the cliffs are edged in silver. Sentry-machines watch us from hangars in the crags.

All of that, and I didn’t know it was there until the prow broke the cloud tops. Another thirty seconds or so, and I’d have hit something. Not that the big ship would’ve noticed.

I wish I could pop my helmet and rub my throbbing eyes. I’ve been staring at nothing but cloud and empty space for what feels like weeks. Long enough that I’d miss the biggest ship ever built.