“It won’t happen tomorrow, but it’ll happen.”

A concrete platform rises behind her, the letter C stencilled on one side in bright yellow, tall as I am and almost as wide as Salt. A monorail train waits for us at the top.

Hail plugs a thumb over her shoulder. “For now, I need you to get inside.”

“Where are we going?” I ask, without thinking.

Hail watches me. “Does it matter?”

It does, I realise.

I spent three weeks on a windowless shuttle to get here, months before that to reach Kiruna station, wherever the fuck that was relative to everything else. The most of two years, if you count the time I spent in limbo, waiting for someone to buy my time.

All that, only to be dropped into the bowels of a ship that I didn’t know existed, in a place that no one’s bothered to name. I don’t know where I am; not on this ship, not anywhere. I don’t even know what the stars look like outside.

“It matters,” says Salt, before I can reply.

Hail almost smiles. “All right. At this moment, we’re standing on the starboard edge of Hangar C. You three are transferring to my unit, based in D-Lower.”

“There are four hangars, then?” asks Lear. “Three more like this?”

“The NCSV Horizon has twelve master hangars, A through L, and they’re all the same as this one. A through C are dry-dock and transitional, six corvettes and two destroyers apiece. D through F are where the shells live. G and H are the hives where the fighters hold up at night. The rest are modular bays, configured on demand.”

Christs.

“Where are we?” I ask.

“This is Hangar C—”

“No,” rumbles Salt. He steps forward, arms crossed over his chest. “I’ve never heard of a ship this size. Not even in the Authority. Not anywhere.”

“Horizon is one of the original six; one of the dreadnoughts,” says Hail, without so much as a blink, “and the largest warship ever built.”

“But where the hell are we?”

The jackets step up, but Hail waves them down. “We are holding anchor in Open Waters, beyond the frontier. Where, exactly? I couldn’t tell you. It’s deeper than you’ve ever been before, and that’s all it pays to know for now. The rest we’ll fill in later, when you can handle it.”

“I’ve been deeper than most,” I say.

“Been swimming all my life,” says Lear.

She meets our eyes, one after the other, but she doesn’t give an inch. “You haven’t been deep like this.”

Lear bites back. “How would you know?”

“I know because Horizon is it. Because you are now further from the Origin System than anyone else in human history.”

“Where?” asks Lear, his voice catching just enough for us to hear it.

“Wouldn’t help if I told you.”