Hail is shouting, but there’s nothing she can do. If Kadi can hear her broadcast, he’s ignoring it. The Decatur spreads its stance, improvised club loose between its fingers.

I expect the Juno to find its feet, to come in low and fast with those hammer-fists up, but the old machine doesn’t move. At first I think it’s waiting, trying to make sense of the blurry, half-familiar thing trespassing in its hangar.

No. That isn’t it. I can see the way it’s hunched itself, one arm just out of sight. The old shell is holding something, sheltered behind the mass of its body.

The Decatur takes another step closer, but its jockey drops the foot too hard, clumsy and loud, shaking the ground beneath us. Whoever’s riding saddle is way out of their depth, and the fight hasn’t started yet. The next step is so far off-line it nearly dumps the shell across the deck. The machine catches itself on the hangar-side, forces itself straight and steady, but I can see it wasn’t the operator who reacted. They’re flubbing it, losing connection.

Every jockey in the room can see how this is going to go.

I can hear Hail switching channels in the background. Trying to explain, for all the good it’ll do. The Decatur straightens as its operator finds themselves again, flares all that plating, taller and wider, as if it can scare the Juno into submission.

But the threat is only as good as it looks, and that old shell is blind.

“Christs-dammit, Kadi, it can’t see what you’re trying to do… Kadi? Kadi? Why won’t you listen?”

Somewhere behind her pleading, almost silent, is something else. It isn’t a voice, not exactly.

What are you? barely an echo on the net. I think I’m the only one who hears it.

The Decatur tilts its head, as if listening to something. Not the whisper in my ear, but something loud and coarse.

“Take it,” growls Sul Kadi.

Hail is right behind me. “No! No!”

The pale shell slides one leg forward, the strut raised over one shoulder. Muscle moves beneath its massive plates, ready to put all that weight behind the swing.

But it’s off balance, overextended. And slow. Way too slow. Blind as it is, even Juno sees it coming.

The Decatur brings its weapon around and down. The Juno stands into the blow, one hand still clutched to its chest, the other raised, angled, and ready to ride the impact. Metalwork skips from its armour in a shriek of steel and a shower of sparks. The signal mast tears and buckles, folds under its own mass, turning to deadweight in the pale shell’s hands. There’s no damage done to Juno, just paint and surface wear.

And Decatur’s now in range.