The ground crew trails away and begins sealing themselves into launch shelters on either side of the rail. The SO does one last check to make sure there’s no one left on deck.

“Good hunting,” he replies.

He fades away, and the rest of Hangar D folds in. Warbling radio chatter from a thousand different places: pilots calling in, jockeys calling out, ground crews and munitions mumbling into their mikes. Horizon’s traffic control wades through it, trying to keep order in the chaos.

The Juno throttles the noise back down to echoes and whispers, and finds me three connections in the blocks nearby. I can feel the others in their machines, three little pressure points arranged across the sides of my head. Salt is closest, and his contact presses hardest against my skull.

The Juno and I pick him up on our sensor-web, and my displays mark him out, a golden silhouette projected up against the wall. His prickly machine rests on the other side, sitting straight in its starting blocks, hands on its hips.

“What’s the hold-up?” I ask.

The silhouette looks over at me, watching a projection of its own. “Waiting on a hotfix.” It taps a finger on its knee. “I stepped a little too quickly. Looks like I made a dent.”

Lear skips in. “He nearly buttered one of his crew.”

Salt’s shadow looks back at something the Juno and I can’t see, past the wall of his hangar. There’s too much steel for us to make it out.

“I lost my balance for a second. Just a second.” Salt sighs loud enough to carry. “I’m a little rusty, as it turns out.”

“I’m sure the knuckledraggers appreciate that.”

“Damage?” I ask.

“All green. I’ll be good to go as soon as the SO clears me.”

“All right.” I take a deep breath. “Any other problems?”

“I’m handling it. Sync is holding steady at seventy-eight percent. Just gotta get used to wearing it, is all.” His silhouette gives an awkward thumbs-up. “There we go. Crew is clearing out. My machine will be good to go in two.”

“And the jockey?”

Salt chuckles. “He’ll just have to do.”

“Fair enough.” I try to get a fix on the shell behind him. “Lear?”

“Never flown anything with parts that matched.”

“Ready to go?”

“SO signals all-clear. Locks are holding and rails are open.” I can almost hear the grin. “This is going to be good.”

At the end of the line, Hail’s slender machine waits in its blocks, every system reporting. I can’t see her with my instruments alone, but her shell is reporting every little detail. Enough for the Juno to sketch her out for me. Her posture is perfect.

“We’re ready for launch, captain.”