Hail leads us along a path Andrade left for us, through little pockets of mould and dust and abandoned machinery. Patches of Horizon’s dead tissue, left to rot, but still tight enough to keep the air. A ruined engineering station meets us a few minutes in, tools still hanging from their mounts, and a few dead drones lying on tables, dissected. Someone has levered some of the light-sockets out, left the bulbs hanging from lines of tangled wire, low enough that Salt has to brush them clear, throwing strange shadows through the passages on either side. We duck under chains and crane hooks, following a track worn silver through the dust, and doors left open so long that their corroded joints hold them in place.

One compartment is full of cots, bedding, and the kind of scatter that tends to follow the crew around a ship. Posters cling to the walls, torn or curling: faceless bodies fondle themselves, and oversized lips blow kisses through the grime.

Names and dates stick out where they’ve been scratched into the paint, sketches and scribbles competing for space with dockside poetry and tallies of the dead.

13.51

We always remember the dead.

“Always,” I whisper, where the other two can’t hear.

The next room is full of shadows. Three ratty seats face the wall, crowded by banks of screen displays. Manual controls stick out between display nodes and analogue gauges. Checklists and diagrams peek out from under the dust, thick red paint runs lumpy across the bulkheads, punctuated by stencils turned ghostly pale.

Salt runs a finger across one of the panels, flicks it out. “What do you think they are?”

Hail shrugs. “Knowing NorCol? Just about anything.”

“Well, it isn’t big enough to be flight control, and we’re a long way out from systems, helm... even engines.”

“It’s a gunnery station,” I realise.

18.99

We know guns when we see them.

“But we’re too deep for that, remember?” Hail dusts the console with a glove. “Even if we weren’t, I don’t think there are any guns on this side of the ship.”

But Salt has realised it too. “No, she’s right. Think about it; ever seen a hangar like the one Andrade’s using?”

“Christs,” mutters Hail. “What do you even do with a gun that size?”

“You sink dreadnoughts,” says Salt. “Hell, planets. Whatever you damn-well please.” He rolls his shoulders. “Isn’t that what dreadnoughts do?”

Hail says something else, but I’m not sure I hear her. For a second, I’m choking on vertigo, but it pulls away as quickly as it rushed in, leaving a lingering weight in my stomach, and a tingle at the back of my throat.

“Come on,” I say, with more force than I’m looking for. “They’re waiting for us.”

Hail and Salt watch me, but they don’t argue.

22.13

Waiting for you.