We cut ourselves loose of Salt’s little net, the last calculations spinning away like threads on the breeze. In their place, the Juno calls up the files it took from VINE before. The Stepping Stone floats in the middle of my vision, every rivet rendered in golden holographics. A red line cuts through it, slicing through armour and the skeleton underneath. Densities scroll down one side, munition velocities and impact-force down the other. The Juno adds its own calculations.

It will take three shots from our rifle: one to crack the armour, the second to shatter the structure, the third to tumble through the break, and do very specific damage on the other side.

“I have given your Juno everything it needs. It will be quick and easy. Your pilot will confirm.”

But Hail isn’t letting go. “Why? Why do this?”

“I have told you already. I do not want to die. Let me drift.”

“What are you afraid of?” I ask. I can almost feel Hail looking at me.

“When you sleep, you go somewhere else. I do not have that luxury. I am always here, even if I do not always show it.” There’s a pause. “There are nightmares out here, in all of this. I have felt them watching me. I have heard them chatter.”

“Nightmares, VINE?”

“Predators. Monsters.”

The line from VINE turns incoherent for a moment, until the Juno’s systems can piece it back together. It’s a recording, collected by the Stone’s automated systems. At first, it runs thick with Eye-light static and interference, but we strip the noise out easily enough, and find the edge of something else. It feels like spoken language, and my visor tries to work a translation, but it’s nothing our systems have ever seen before. Whatever’s making it, it seems to be the same few words running on repeat, over and over. Hollow sounds, cut through with shrieks and madness.

“What are they?” whispers Hail. “VINE?” she asks, when the intelligence doesn’t reply. “What are they?”

“Soul hunters.”

SALT’S MACHINE IS the first to push off. The Decatur is the one with the thunder; enough fire to keep him alongside until Hail has launched, and the Juno and I have done what we need to do. Enough to manoeuvre if either of us need a hand out of trouble.

The pale shell straightens and leans back from the station’s central column. There isn’t much space to do it, but he works through as much of his pre-flight as he can. Good thing too. He’s got a rough start ahead of him, standstill to hard-gee and high windshear in less than a heartbeat.

His vents glow and his engines spool. His wings work themselves clear of their housings, unfold themselves as far as they can without catching the wind. They flex, feathers and spines rolling around in their joints, twitching and stretching, feeling for anything that might snag when he throws them out against the wind.