His machine powers forward, glows in the air ahead of us. It stretches its wings, turns them flat, and spreads itself out against the wind. It shivers in the drag, but holds out, fighting the currents with muscle and nova-glow.

We trail behind him, riding quiet air.

“I can’t hold for long,” he says, calm words turned grainy as his shell vibrates.

But we’re already taking aim. “Fire one.”

The trigger clicks, propellants burn, heat flares between our fingers. We don’t have time to watch the first impact; the shot rolls us out of Salt’s shadow and into the turbulence. Every heartbeat feels like an hour, stretching out as we correct and find our aim again.

“Fire two.”

We’ve braced ourselves this time and can watch the round on our thermals. A sudden flare, and the Stone’s hull buckles underneath.

“Fire three.”

Orange blossoms where the round tears armour, turns to a wash of embers on the other side. They tumble, ripping through insulation behind the steel, trailing shrapnel through the compartments on the other side. A pillar cracks and pistons sheer. The station tilts on its axis, spun by the wind as the remaining supports tear themselves free.

The listening post rattles in place, armour failing from the inside as the little Stone breaks clear of its restraints. A seam splits and plating twists, folding around something it was never designed to stop. The station tears itself free of its anchor, tumbling already.

“Good luck,” says VINE, words laced with strange shapes and hidden depths.

And then it is gone.

The ciphers are already unwinding, revealing point references and a billion little calculations. We’ve got days of flying to do.

“Are you seeing this?” It’s Salt. His machine has already done all of the counting, plotted the whole trip out in painful detail.

“Seeing what?” I ask.

Hail takes a breath. “It’s deeper than we thought,” she says. “It’s right on the edge.”

Twenty-Two

TWENTY-TWO

I CAN’T SLEEP.

We’ve put thirty-eight hours between ourselves and the rock where Sigurd’s little station used to be, and any jockey worth their spurs would be sleeping by now. Shells are made to take it; even the simplest of them can fly a steady course without a human tugging strings. Even jink and turn and put the screamers out, if a hostile mark shows up on its scopes.

The other jockeys are sleeping already, their machines holding them dormant while the worst of the flight passes by. Salt went quiet a few hours in, a little ping from his shell as it switched from operator to internal logic. Hail dropped off a few hours after that, once she’d told me to get some shut-eye for myself.

I told her that I would, but I knew that I couldn’t. I didn’t know what else to say.

98.99

Because I was asleep already.