Salt and I keep to the main circuits for as long as we can, but it’s a few minutes before we cut ourselves loose, ears ringing. We switch through the smaller networks after that, but the channels are clogged so tight that we can’t make single words out of the wash.

We trade glances. We’ve both been to war before: not the slow-boil in this place, but real, all-out war, him on the Authority’s tab, me on a company bill. We’ve had people freeze on us, lose the tune right when we needed them on the spot, but that’s what happens. They say that war is hell, but in my experience, it’s mostly been about the noise. Or the lack of it. Horizon’s been in the quiet so long it doesn’t remember what the churn feels like.

This could all be for nothing. It could be driftwood on someone’s scopes, tripping wires and starting alarms. It could be a competitor shell that picked the wrong winds home and drifted into view.

NorCol has thousands of machines in these hangars, and more guns than anyone would ever care to count. It’s a dreadnought: the largest even of its kind.

And it’s seizing up at the first sign of trouble.

Salt stands on the monorail platform, the first line we can find that leads back to the middle of Hangar D. He looks back at me just as his eyes go dim, and folds his long NorCol coat over a shoulder. “I can’t get a response. This line isn’t calling back, and every train I can reach is a long way away and dealing with troubles of its own.” He nods my way. “Any luck there?”

I kill the last of my open connections. “I’ve tried Hail, Folau, and even Kadi. All personnel searches are coming back full of static. If they’re out there, it’s in the noise. They aren’t going to hear us.” I breathe out, feeling empty. “We’re on our own.”

He leans over the platform edge. “Looks like we’re walking, then.”

Christs. “All the way back to our blocks?”

“Unless there’s anywhere else you mean to be, yes.”

“Just what I needed.”

“You could always stay here.”

I glare his way, but he meets it with a smile.

“Come on,” he says, and drops off the edge of the platform.

I hear him hit steel somewhere below and follow. Onto the monorail first, then down a ladder to the service path following the line. It’s supposed to be for maintenance, but looking at it, you wouldn’t think that there’d been boots down here in decades. It takes a second to see why.