“It’s been done before. We just need to do it again.”

“So what’s the plan?”

“The observer came here looking for a weapon, another Demiurge it could throw against the wardens and the froth; so we deny it that. The flood is trying to break itself loose, trying to break out whatever else those cells were built to hold; so we drag it back in chains, if that’s what it takes. We become the wardens.”

“How do we hold it?” asks Mer Sah. “How do we even reach it?”

I wave Andrade closer. “You saved my ground crew.”

He frowns at me. “I did.”

“All of them?”

“Every spanner and grease-ball on your block.”

“I need Avery.”

Mer Sah frowns at that. “That layabout?” she asks. “What do you want him for?” She looks me over, trades a glance with King and Andrade. “I don’t understand.”

In the distance, the Juno’s hand comes to rest on the grip of our blade. I can almost feel the texture, the grooves worn by use.

“NorCol never throws anything away.”

Twenty-Nine

TWENTY-NINE

WE GIVE ANDRADE’S team a running start. Eight shells and a handful of operators in Werewolf-black, a hundred and fifty marines. They follow side tunnels and redundant ducts, forgotten compartments and airlocks that only cycle when you add muscle. The path they take is not on any map that we can find, but they know which direction they need to go, and what to look for along the way.

They move aft, along the spine of the ship.

When our turn comes, we head towards the skin. Back towards the wind.

Bor leads us partway along the corridors that carried us in. The rest of her wingmates are with Andrade, but she’s the best the Werewolf has for what we need. She takes us through shortcuts and into hidden chambers, stepping around hollow mechanisms and flagging the clever double-blinds that keep the survivors out of sight. From there, between armour plates, and through a torpedo magazine, then into the network of tubes and exhaust channels meant for launching them.

We follow a sloping tube, walking first, then climbing as the incline forces us to look for grip. We follow handholds made for maintenance machines, covering ourselves in fuel residue and radioactive ash.

At the summit, the launch silo cuts away to open air, the doors long since locked back and out of the way.

Bor’s machine leans over the edge, catching streamers on the breeze and Eye-light on her plates. She looks back at us. “Remember the way we came,” sends the Decatur, dusted grey by the climb. “We delete the records now. Geometry, pathing, compass logs. Any visuals.”

I hadn’t noticed before, but there’s a little of Hasei’s richness in her voice, the accent thicker when she whispers.

“Anything the hollows could use to trace our steps?” asks Salt, somewhere below us. “Christs,” he mutters, “that’s bleak.”