My ground crew trades glances but decide not to argue. I drop my coat, loosen my boots, break the clasp on my belt. Folau splits the conductive suit down on its seals, holds it open while I slide my feet inside. The other ’dragger offers me her shoulder for balance, switches places with Folau once we’ve got his side done. We close it to the waist, trade my shirt for the upper layers of conductive circuitry and soft armour, all buckled together over my shoulders and around my throat. The helmet goes on easiest of all, but I’d never need help for that.

Even at a distance, the counter hits the limit—97, dead on.

We are one again.

“How’s the hand?” we ask Folau.

“Cracks are patched and joints are seated.”

We could have told him that. “But?”

A yawn runs through him. We can see a catnap in the corners of his eyes and the creases in his jumpsuit, stolen in a corner somewhere when Avery had his back turned.

“But it’s just that. Patched. You hit so hard it put cracks in the structure itself. Skeletal stuff. The repairs are as good as they’re gonna get, but what we really need is time. Long enough to strip all of the armour off and splint the cracks, one by one.”

We shrug, or part of us does.

“It’ll have to do.”

“No, it won’t.” There’s a smile now, despite everything else. Folau holds himself better than I’d expect. Better than should be possible. He singles out a flatbed on the far side of the block. “Avery found you a present.”

We look back at Avery. He looks just as ruffled as Folau, but on half the hours, if we had to guess. He meets our gaze for half a second, but switches to his feet.

“What is it?”

He licks his lips. “Let me—uh, let me show you.”

The loader has a tarp across the top, held down by reflective straps and covered in stencils.

DECOM, says one set of marks. DEEP STORE, says another.

“What does that mean?” we ask.

Avery climbs onto the flatbed, splits a clasp, starts tugging on the covers. “NorCol never throws anything away.”

“Doesn’t have to,” offers Folau, behind me. “Not on a ship like this.”

“Nah. All the old kit gets dumped in Deep Store. They’ve got a—a—ar—”

“Archives?”

“Archives. Vaults full of stuff. Hundreds of years, prolly.” The last of the clasps fall away. “So, uh—here. So you don’t break that hand again.”

Laid out flat across the truck is a length of hard steel, painted red and white and yellow in alternating hazard-strips. A handle sticks out on one end, big enough to fit a Juno’s hands. The other end tapers to a point.