She repeated the trek up the hull’s backbone, unable to take a full breath for the pain in her ribs. She reached the valve, stuck the spanner through an eyehole at the top and spun it round. Dodging a small jet of leftover steam as the packing gland came loose, she wheeled the spanner until the gland popped all of the way out, removed the few metallic rings inside, and reassembled the valve. She quickly scuttled by, then slid back down toward the big shutoff valve. “How much time to do we have?”

“Not much, Naecia. I have visual on their deceleration burn. If you can get rid of that sortie, now would be the time.”

“Yeah. Out.” She half wondered if Aptat would simply leave her in the hull if she succeeded in blowing the sortie. Probably not, now that she occupied their prized armor. She was practically wearing a second hostage. She ducked under the lever so it sat atop her shoulder. “Ready?”

“They’re here. Do it.”

She burst upward, opening the full flow of critical steam downstream. Even lacking instruments, she sensed the pressures skyrocketing. The sabotaged valve lasted barely a moment before blowing. The hull space blinked and the shock hurled her backward through the works. She caught a support and held on, then flipped violently to the other side as the ship decelerated.

“Naecia, check in.”

“I’m here,” she said. “The valve blew. Pretty sure the sortie is gone.”

“It took the dock and the top half of the hull with it.”

“Opportunity cost,” she responded. “Do you have control of the ship?”

“Yes, but I need that steam back on.”

“I’m making my way to the cut-off now.” Steam was venting through the blown line causing the Child to flip. She crawled hand over hand. “Where are the Vortu?”

“Just above us. Hurry.”

The thruster valve had blown clean off, leaving an open pipe elbow aimed straight up to where the sortie and the dock had once been, now erupting into the void. She scrambled to the cut-off, swung out the control lever and tried to pull it down. With no gravity, she had no weight to counterbalance her effort. Thinking quick, she flipped upside-down, bracing her feet on the inner surface of the outer hull. She reached overhead, took hold of the lever, and pushed it slowly down until the plume cut out.

Something thumped the hull just under her feet.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

“‘Welcome back’? What does that mean, Ben?”

The humanoid thing shifted its “head” as a wave of openings presented upon the “face”. More whispers. I had to turn an ear to the sound. It was like trying to hear someone calling over the wind from across a field. Only, I was the one doing the calling. Cree-py.

“What now?” asked Patton.

I cleared my throat. “It just keeps saying the same thing over and over,” I answered. “‘Save us.’”

“From what?”