“I only saw the port-side. Two lenses completely destroyed, the other still in its rings, but cracked.”

She rubs her eyes. “It should have sensors and scopes left.”

“They’re long-range. Terrain and ranging won’t help either. Good for fighting another machine, but at this distance, it can’t see more than shapes and shadows.”

“So what do we do? That Decatur isn’t getting in here.”

I smile. “It won’t have to.”

The glare softens, but only by a hair. “Tell me what I’m missing.”

“Earlier, when you picked us up—you said there was a helmet. What did you mean?”

For a moment, I’m sure she’s going to wall me out. Then something gives. “It came in a few days ago, E and O guy dropped it off. The package had my name on it, but no return address. There was a note with it, handwritten, asking that I hold onto it for a while. I recognised the unit number when I met you.”

I laugh, despite myself. “He thought I was being stitched up. Probably still can’t believe that I did what I did.”

“Who?”

“Antique by the name of Troy. Head knuckledragger for my old unit.” I shake my head, but I can’t bury the smile. “Such a goddamn sentimentalist.”

Hail’s eyes find their edge again. “And what does your helmet have to do with the Juno?”

“You said it remembers everything, right?”

“Everything.”

“Well, it’ll remember this.”

Four

FOUR

THE GREAT COMPANIES have a lot in common. Efficiency is one. Their operations stretch between stars and employ billions of human beings; it’s exactly what you’d expect. A kink in the system means a tidal wave further down the way, and so they build in straight lines, network their employees, and layer everything with lube.

Ruthlessness is another. The companies survived where governments could not, back when humanity was taking its first steps out of the Origin System. Every employee gets the same history lesson when they sign up: the Colonial Authority might be the big dog now, but it was the companies that kept the species afloat while Earth’s little empires set themselves alight. What they won’t tell you is that when the unified government finally caught up to the company seed-fleets, it found entire systems inaccessible, radioactive, and clouded with the wreckage of a thousand corporate wars. The companies are still at it, but it’s small-scale now, where the Authority’s dreadnoughts aren’t looking or are too distant to intervene.