A few hours’ sleep would’ve fixed it, but I’ve been wide awake since we set off. I’ve tried every trick I can think of, and that’s with a decade in the saddle. No one sleeps like a jockey; even upside-down and trailing fire, we’d still find a way to shut our eyes. Or at least, I should. I’ve got a prickly headache, and the kind of creeping, restless itch that makes it impossible to sit still. The Juno has a supply of stims and trauma-blockers, but they’re made to keep you running; the machine could keep me awake forever if it wanted to, or it could shut me down so hard I wouldn’t wake up without an IV and medical supervision.

So I stay awake; awake and wiry and wishing that I’d tried some of the painkillers about eight hours ago. At least I wouldn’t have the ache keeping me company.

Worse, I’d forgotten that the Lighthouse was downwind. Anywhere else and we could break atmo, coast in the vacuum for a bit; here, we fight the currents. It took us five hours to reach our objective, but we’ve spent nearly twice that getting back, and it’s all been thick and turbulent.

It’s not just the wind. Hail has managed ten whole words since we left the Lighthouse. Just enough to put me in charge of getting us back to ground. Salt hasn’t been much better, but it’s not the same. He’s quiet—you can almost hear the brooding—but Hail’s silence has mass. It sucks at your ears, presses up against the sides of your head.

“You there, Tower?” I ask, more to ease the hush than anything else. My voice sounds about as raw as I feel, and the words come out croaking.

“Read you, two-eleven.” It’s Bell Tower again. I can feel the Juno silently responding to her nets, handshaking with the ranging stations, trading ciphers with the turrets on either side of us. The last lines of point-defence relax into their housings, and missile-tubes seal themselves against the breeze. “Good hunting?” she asks.

I swallow. It hurts. “Negative, Bell Tower. We lost one.”

There’s a pause. “A shell?”

The question isn’t out of place, even if it feels that way. No one kills ejectors.

“Shell and jockey.”

I can hear her take a breath. “Who was it?”

“Lear. 211-B.”

“Understood.” Her voice is suddenly clinical, like something’s flipped a switch. It’s the kind of tone every decent operator has in their back pocket. When there’s a fire on deck, a hole in the hull, you hope that you’ll get someone on the line who speaks just like this.

Have no fear. We are in control.

“Do you have him with you?”

“We do. 211-C is carrying.”