I look up at where the Juno’s head would be, hidden behind the ugly panelling. I can feel its eyes.

I’ll get you out of there.

I march on the nearest NorCol uniform. “You.”

He looks up at me, blinking.

“Name?”

He gawks for a second before catching up. I can see the fight brewing, even before he knows it himself. The hairs on his neck stand up, and some dry comment perches on the tip of his tongue, something about jockeys minding their own business.

I hold my ground, work my fist. He wouldn’t be the first knuckledragger I’ve laid out on the deck. “Something wrong with your hearing?”

“Avery,” comes out in a choke.

“Avery,” I repeat, filing the name away. “Who put those locks on my machine?”

“Kadi,” he says, without a moment’s hesitation.

He flicks a glance at my helmet. I’ve got it resting on two fingers, hanging by its chin guard. Three kinds of bonded composite, metal plating over the top, combat marks and badges jingling. The skull-bucket in the middle of it all is built to take a bullet, front and centre. Probably worse than bullets, but I’ve never had reason to test that.

His eyes check off the helmet and skip to my waist. Different units have different loadouts, but he can see the big pistol on my hip, and he’ll know about the nasty sawback blade in the small of my back. I can see the calculations rolling around inside his head.

His job doesn’t count much fighting, and you can see that from a K away. His fingers are fine, covered in clear oil, rather than the muck and grease you’d get on a mechanic. His patches mark him as the senior ’dragger for this block, but by the look of him, he’d be happy to be left alone with the avionics.

He’s already worked out I wouldn’t go for the knife or the gun. That would be too much.

No. He’s seen the same thing before. A bar fight, probably. A jockey panting in the middle of it, heavy helmet like a bloody wrecking ball. Avery maps his teeth out with his tongue, like he’s taking a moment to remember how many there are and what they all feel like.

If there was going to be resistance, it evaporates. After all, this isn’t even his fight. Sul Kadi seems to be in charge, but Avery is the first point of contact. Kadi can only shit on him when he’s got the time and inclination, and being the boss knuckledragger means that he’s almost always bingo on both. Avery will be attached to this particular block. He’ll have to deal with me every day.

“I’ll pull the locks,” he says, already spinning on his heel. He wrangles a pair of greasers on the way, snaps at their heels.